Ledger Dripping Red
by KyliaQuilor
Summary: "You're a killer, Grant. You made mistakes, and all that was compounded by what Garrett did to you." Romanoff walked back up to the laser barrier. "Your ledger drips red. If you want to try to blot it out, to try to settle your accounts, then I can give you that chance." Even if she had to break him out of the cell. "Think about it." (Eventual Skyeward, Grant Ward Redemption)
1. Think About It

**D** **isclaimer:** I don't own any part of the MCU. A bunch of companies do.

 **Note 1:** This is an idea I had that refused to be put aside, and the opening scene more or less wrote itself.

 **Note 2:** I've never had an opinion one way or the other on Clintasha as a pairing (I read it and enjoyed it and believed it when it came up in a fic, but it was never something I shipped or sought out), but the fact that Age of Ultron blew the pairing out of the water canon-wise (what with his canon wife and kids, etc) means that in this fic, its not going to have been a thing. They were and are very close, but they are not lovers, nor were they lovers at any point. Barton will be showing up in this fic, but it will take a several chapters to get to him. If Clintasha is what you're looking for, you're not going to find it here. I'm sorry.

 **Note 3:** We see a heck of a lot less of Agent Romanoff (Four movies with her in them so far, a total maybe 9 or a little more hours of airtime) than any major character in AoS (22 45-minute episodes totals out to 16.5 hours, and AoS has had two seasons). Its the nature of things with TV shows – but what it means is that it is harder to get a good handle on a character's personality when you have less to work with. This is all a roundabout way of saying that I don't feel 100% confident in my writing of Romanoff. I feel she's in-character, but she's not an easy character to write. If you think I'm writing her OOC, please, please feel free to tell me so (politely, even if critically), in a review, comment or private message – I may not always agree with you, but I will hear you out, and if convinced, I will try to take your issues with my characterization of her into account.

 **Note 4:** For the interested, I have a tumblr, alkenifanfiction . Tumblr . Com (remove extraneous spaces) where I do sneak peaks, writing updates, new fic announcements, fandom metas, and so on. If you're interested, take a look, if not, on with the fic!

Thanks to Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading this chapter.

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 1: Think About It

 **Director Coulson's Office, The Playground**

 **September 28th, 2014**

"Where is he!?"

When Phil Coulson, formerly Agent and now Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (more commonly referred to as S.H.I.E.L.D.) heard his door burst open – without so much as a knock or a warning – he'd been expecting Skye. Granted, the former Rising Tide hacker usually knocked, but she was the only one who would burst in without knocking.

He wouldn't say that Natasha Romanoff was the one he'd least expected to see when he looked up. But she still ranked up there, given that the woman wasn't supposed to know that he was alive, and she wasn't supposed to know about the Playground. For all intents and purposes, the former 'Black Widow' wasn't even a member of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. She'd spent the months since the fall of the agency working solo, or with Cap or Hawkeye, to take down Hydra Bases, but as a free agent.

"I don't suppose I should really bother asking how you got to my office without raising any alarms or attracting the attention of security?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I do have to ask how you knew we were here."

"I've known about the Playground for a while." Romanoff countered. "After I heard the Air Force took Providence – and what the hell was Hill thinking with that, I don't know - I figured that this was the place you'd be." She held up a hand and pointed at Coulson, her tone growing sharp. "And don't think I've forgiven you for not telling us you were alive after the Battle of New York."

 _I wasn't exactly 'alive' after the Battle itself._ Coulson didn't tell her that. It was bad enough that Romanoff knew he was alive at all, It was a hard secret to keep from her, he supposed, but they'd managed it for some time before the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Of course, if Romanoff knew, then Barton knew, and the odds were good that the rest of the Avengers either knew already or would know soon.

"I was under orders from Director Fury." Coulson said instead, falling back on a reasonable – and technically accurate – excuse.

"Fury hasn't been Director for months. You don't have to keep sticking to his more moronic orders." Romanoff pointed out. "I _mourned_ you. I attended your funeral!" She shook her head. "But that's another conversation. Where is he?"

There were a few 'he's that Romanoff could be referring to, technically, but given the circumstances, and the way that she'd barged into his office-

Before he could say anything, Romanoff was away from his desk and grabbing someone, then flipping them to the ground, one hand on their collar, the other raised in a fist. The whole motion had been a blur, almost too fast to follow.

"Agent May." Romanoff got off the other woman, helping her up. "Nice to see you again too."

"Likewise." May offered the Russian woman a rare smile. "If I had known it was you, I wouldn't have been concerned."

"You don't know why she's here." Coulson pointed out, looking May. He looked at Romanoff. "Ward's in a cell, where he belongs."

May looked from him to Romanoff, then back to him. The confusion wasn't actually on her face, but he knew it was there.

"Where he belongs?" Romanoff let out a small half-scoff of laughter. "Because a cell is really the best place for him. You're just giving up on him? He was a member of your team – he's one of us."

"He was never one of us." May cut in, and Coulson nodded.

"May's right. Ward was never a member of our team, and he stopped being one of us when he joined Hydra." The blank, surprised look on Romanoff's face seemed out of place. Then recognition dawned on her face:

"You really don't know?" She let out another soft scoff. "Being Director really has changed you, Coulson. Where did the guy who always tried to dig deeper go?" Romanoff stood up straight and glared at Coulson. "I want to see him."

It was probably a futile gesture – Romanoff didn't give up when she got like this – but he had to try. She didn't understand. She didn't understand what Ward had done. "You can't. You're not objective on this. I know he saved your life-"

"He saved it _three_ times," Romanoff interjected. All things considered, it wasn't that high – Barton had saved her life nine or ten times (as far as Coulson knew, they still bickered about how many it was), and he'd saved her life four times himself. But if there was one thing Romanoff had always been, since she'd joined S.H.I.E.L.D. it was loyal to the people who put their own lives on the line to save hers.

"Three times then," Coulson accepted. "But that's exactly why you're not objective. You don't understand what he's done. H – he's a murderer, a liar and a traitor. The man's been a -"

Romanoff cut him off. " _I'm_ not objective? You're saying he needs to stay in a cell, that he deserves to be given up on, because he's a murderer? I killed a lot more people than he ever did before I joined with S.H.I.E.L.D. We're all liars – we're spies. It's kind of in the job description. And Barton betrayed us all when he brought down the Helicarrier while working for Loki. You forgave him."

"Barton was brainwashed," Coulson replied. "Loki took control of his mind with the scepter. It's not the same thing."

"No, it's not," Romanoff agreed. "Garrett had to brainwash him Grant the old-fashioned way. He had five years to work on Grant before he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. And no one noticed. The entire agency abandoned him to...what was it you called Garrett? A deranged narcissist?" Coulson nodded, wondering how she'd heard that comment. And, of course, wondering how long it was going to take for Stark to hack his way into the base, or for Cap to show up, demanding to know why he'd never told them he was alive.

 _Well,_ _you_ _d_ _on't_ _ **know**_ _that she told them_. The only one he could be sure knew was Barton. Romanoff virtually never kept secrets from him.

"Your problem isn't that he's a traitor; your problem is that he betrayed _you_. He spent the entire time on your team lying to you and you never saw it. – you're angry at him for being able to trick you, and you're mad at yourself for never seeing it," Romanoff said. "You're no more objective than I am." She stepped forward, put her hands on his desk and leaned towards him. "You're going to let me see him."

Coulson didn't say anything for a long moment. – all he did do was shoot May a look telling her to not say anything either. He should have known that sooner or later, Romanoff would find out that Ward was Hydra. Natasha had never gotten as close to him as she had to Clint, but, after their year and a half of working together on the same team, Coulson knew that Ward had been one of the ones she called a friend.

And what was this about Garrett having had five years to work on Ward? Ward didn't meet the so-called Clairvoyant until he was at the academy. He didn't get Garrett as an S.O. until his second year. Ward had been recruited straight out of military school. – his off the charts hand-eye coordination had drawn the eye of a recruiter, and then the rest was...well, the rest was history.

He would have combed through Ward's records, trying to find answers ...but having Skye erase almost every trace of the man had come back to haunt him. He shouldn't have been surprised that Romanoff had found out more than him. – no one was better at finding information that no one else could find than she was. Well, maybe Skye, if the information was somewhere on the internet. But that was another question for another time.

"He's not the man you remember. He called you eye-candy," Coulson said after a moment. Would it be so bad to let Romanoff see him? Let her see how much Ward wasn't the guy they'd all come to know, come to care about?

Something told him it was a bad idea. There was something about Romanoff's tone, – that initial burst of anger when she'd come into his office demanding to know where Ward was. She wasn't pissed at Ward; she was pissed at him.

That was never a good place to be.

Romanoff scowled a moment, then laughed darkly. "Yes, Hill told me about that. I'm going to make him pay for that comment one way or the other. But not until after."

"After what?" May demanded, all her good humor at seeing Romanoff thoroughly gone at this point.

"Until after I've decided if he really isn't the man I knew," Romanoff replied. "Unlike you, I actually did the digging. You're the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and pretty smart when you dig your head out of your ass." She stepped back. She took a breath and lowered her voice. – it was a little softer, though only by a touch. "You say I'm not objective., and maybe I'm not, but you're sure as hell not being objective either. You and Clint gave me a second chance, a chance to blot out the red in my ledger. I don't know if he deserves one. I want to see him so I can find out if he does."

"And if you decide he does? You're not the arbiter of who decides on second chances, Agent Romanoff." Coulson tried to adopt a 'Director' tone of voice on her, but it didn't work. "That would be my job."

"Considering we're the ones he betrayed, and what he did to Fitz, it's _definitely_ not up to you,." May cut in.

"I don't work for you anymore, Coulson. I haven't actually signed on with your new S.H.I.E.L.D. yet." She paused and raised an eyebrow, looking at him. "Let me see him and talk to him – with the cameras _off_ – and I'll consider it."

Coulson was tempted. Romanoff was the best. Having her on board – and by extension, Barton – would be a huge boon for them. _But what if she makes the mistake of believing in Ward's crap about wanting to earn redemption?_

No, Romanoff was too smart for that. She wouldn't fall for it. It would cost him nothing. But no cameras?

"You know I can't turn off the cameras on a high security prisoner,." Coulson replied.

Romanoff actually rolled her eyes at that, "Grant's good, yes, but even when he was at his best, he couldn't beat me. You know that, I know that. Don't even start with that."

"Why do you want the cameras off?" May demanded.

"So I can have a conversation with him – and I can't do that with you two and who knows who else watching over my shoulder." An almost cruel smirk formed on her face, and Coulson mentally braced himself. "If you _don't_ let me talk to him – without any cameras, microphones or recorders – I will tell Stark, Bruce, Cap _and_ Thor that you're still alive. Right now, I'm only planning on telling Clint. Do you really want Stark dropping by? Or would you like Pepper to call you up about it?" Telling Stark would be telling Pepper Potts, and Coulson knew that she'd been about as upset, by all accounts, at his death as the rest of the Avengers.

Coulson took a breath. This was a bad idea. He wasn't exactly sure _why_ it was a bad idea; he just knew that it was. But he really, _really_ , didn't want Stark dropping by. Stark was a good man, but the new S.H.E.I.L.D. didn't need the self-obsessed, eccentric billionaire hanging around. Or even dropping in intrusively, which would be even worse.

And it would be useful to have Romanoff and Barton officially part of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Either way, he knew that they'd carry on the fight against Hydra. But they could do much more good as part of the organization. – S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't have the resources it once did, not by a long shot, but it did have resources, connections, and information that could help 'Black Widow' and 'Hawkeye' put their talents in the best places to achieve maximum impact.

"And if I agree to let you see him – with all the cameras, microphones and recorders turned off – you _won't_ tell the rest of the Avengers, apart from Agent Barton?" Coulson clarified.

"I won't. You should tell them, but I won't tell them myself. And I'll make sure Clint doesn't tell them either," Romanoff agreed.

"Fine," Coulson said after a long moment's thought. "You can talk to him. No cameras or anything." He looked to May. "Take her down to Vault D."

 **Vault D, The Playground**

 **September 28th, 2014**

May deliberately led her the long way to where they were keeping Grant. Initially, Romanoff thought it was due to mere spite, until she realized that they hadn't run into _anyone_ else on the base along the way. Coulson was willing to give her the meeting, but apparently he didn't want anyone else to know that it was happening.

Romanoff only knew some of the story of Grant's betrayal. – but she knew that he had dropped Coulson's scientists into the ocean, that one of them ended up in a coma for months. She also was aware that he'd killed Hand, Jacobson, Chaimson, and Eric Koenig. And others, doubtless, though she didn't know how many.

From everything she'd seen and heard from Coulson and May in his office...,their little team had taken the discovery that Grant was a traitor hard. Hard enough that Coulson - who never liked unanswered or incomplete questions - didn't dig. It hadn't even been that hard for her to figure it out, even with a lot of Grant's information missing from the dumped S.H.I.E.L.D. files. But still, only a week and a half in, she'd run into the missing five years in Grant Ward's life. Five years when there was no accounting for his location. Five years after John Garrett paid a visit to a juvenile detention center where a young Grant Ward had been.

May insisted she hand over her weapon before letting her into the cell, but that hadn't been an issue. The woman hadn't taken her bug sweeper, and Romanoff didn't need a weapon to beat Ward, if it came to that. She doubted it would. The laser grid was high grade.

 _Even I'd have trouble figuring out my way past it._

When she walked into the room, the first thing she noticed about Grant, was the beard.

Grant Ward _hated_ having facial hair. He'd never liked undercover ops where it was needed, or ops where he couldn't have access to a razor for whatever reason for long enough for even stubble to grow. He'd always done whatever needed to be done, but he'd never been happy about it. Everything had to be neat and tidy and _just so_ for him.

The second thing she noticed were the scars on his wrists.

That would explain the beard.

She stepped into view of the single flickering light, and Ward blinked.

"Agent Romanoff," he said after a moment, sounding almost… hesitant? But there was still some defiance in his words. "I told Coulson that would give intel to Skye. I _gave_ intel to Skye – and since I know it's true, it obviously panned out. So why would he send you down here? I'm surprised he told you he was alive. Was it just so you could interrogate me?"

There was something both familiar and unfamiliar in the way that Grant spoke. She knew that iron, almost – but never entirely – emotionless certitude well, but there was something in his expression. She wasn't sure what to call it. Pained, she supposed. If she hadn't known him as well as she did...she wouldn't have noticed it. It was there for a split second, and then it was gone.

 _Well, maybe you never knew him_ , a voice that sounded suspiciously like Coulson murmured in the back of her mind. Romanoff ignored it. Maybe she never had known him, but that was why she was here to talk to him.

"I'm not here to interrogate you," she replied, sitting down in the lone chair. "If you volunteer some information about Hydra, I'll make sure it gets to Coulson, but I didn't come here for that."

"Then what did you come here for?" Now his tone was a complete blank. "Are you here about what I said to Hill?"

"You _are_ going to pay for that comment," she told him. "But all things considered, it's a minor sin. I'm here to talk to you." She took out her bug sweeper and stood up, carefully checking the room over, ignoring the confusion on Grant's face as she moved. It only took her a few minutes to be satisfied that Coulson really had turned everything off. It was a top of the line S.H.I.E.L.D. device, upgraded by some of Stark's new tech. It was possible Coulson had something that could beat it, but unlikely.

 _If they can beat it, I guess they've earned what they hear._ She didn't like that possibility, but she'd done what she could.

"I had Coulson turn off the cameras, microphones and recorders for this conversation," she told him, sitting back down.

"Why? And why would he turn them off for you, Agent Romanoff?" Grant's tone was still missing all inflection or emotion. It was the kind of almost total shut down she was only capable of with some effort, these days. But she used to be a hell of a lot more capable of it. Back when she was still with the Red Room and, when she'd just left it.

"Can you stop calling me Agent Romanoff? I'm not an agent of anything at the moment, and you called me Natasha before you went back to solo work." And he had the few times they'd crossed paths at the Hub or the Triskellion. "It's what friends do, Grant."

"I didn't think we still qualified as friends. I don't have any left," Grant replied, flatly.

"It's what I'm here to figure out, Grant. Deep cover only works if you lie as little as you actually need to." She leaned in a little. "The question, then, is who are you? Are you the man I knew? Or are you as evil as Coulson, May and Hill think you are?"

"So you're here to play therapist?" Ward's tone finally found a trace of emotion – mocking scorn. "I know what I am. I've come to terms with it. I'm a murderer and a traitor. A serial killer. A monster." And once more, back to the empty tone.

"I know about Garrett coming to see you in Juvenile Hall." She let that little bomb land without further comment, and saw recognition flick across his face. Fear, pain, loss – all in his eyes for the briefest of moments.

"Those records don't exist. John made sure of that," he said after a moment, shaken, his iron emotionlessness cracked by her unexpected knowledge.

"But people do exist. People who remember you going AWOL from the military school that S.H.I.E.L.D. thinks that you graduated from. People who remember John Garrett showing up at a juvenile secure center in Plymouth, Massachusetts shortly before a group of unknown masked men attacked the center and freed a number of kids. One of whom vanished from the prison records afterwards." Romanoff sat back in the chair, looking him dead in the eye.

"Grant Ward, charged with arson and attempted murder, vanishes. Five years later, you're accepted into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Operations Academy. With no criminal record, and all the paperwork saying you graduated military school." She quirked an eyebrow deliberately. "Interesting isn't it?"

"I was always loyal to John. You knowing for how long doesn't change a thing." Grant replied. "What do you want?"

"How did he do it? Let me guess. He got you out of prison and promised you a place. Told you no one else would ever give a shit about you. That you owed him, for all that he'd done for you, that he'd made something of you." The Red Room had almost certainly been more sophisticated than John Garrett and she'd gotten started there at an even younger age, but the basics were always the same. Dependence. Reliance. Gratitude.

"He made sure he was your only contact with another living being." Isolation. Romanoff looked at him, then stood up, walking towards the laser barrier. "He reminded you every time – about what you were before he got to you, right? He made you rely on him even as he said relying on people made you weak. He promised to build you up, make you matter, and he did. But he built you on his blueprint." She was right in front of the barrier, only about half a foot and a highly lethal barrier between them. "How am I doing so far?"

Grant stepped back a pace, forcing distance between him and her, falling back to be seated on his cot. He didn't say anything for a long moment – a very long moment – then finally:

"Not my only contact. He left me a dog." His voice was... small. Quiet. Pained.

"And he turned you into his dog." She looked at his wrists again. "How many times?"

Grant saw where her gaze was, but didn't say anything. Romanoff didn't ask the question again. She just looked at him, crossing her arms in front of her, waiting for him to talk. She stared, and he stared back. She stared more, and he looked away, unwilling or unable to meet her gaze.

"Three times," he said after a moment. "The last time...I ran at the walls." There was something even more pained in his voice then, and his armor was cracking further. Romanoff made a mental note to get a look at all the recordings of his time in this cell – and whatever other cells Coulson and his people had put Grant in.

"Why?" Without her eyes flickering to the cuts, Grant may have assumed it was the other big 'why', the one no one had ever _really_ asked him. If they'd asked, _really_ asked, and truly listened, Romanoff was fairly sure Grant wouldn't be here. Maybe he wouldn't be allowed to roam free, but he wouldn't be here, in a cell, with nothing but a small space and a cot to keep him company. He'd have been given treatment, help, and they'd have been far less resistant to her seeing him.

"I..." Ward didn't say anything for a minute, then two minutes, letting the single letter sit out there, unfollowed. Then finally he said, "John was dead. My entire life for fifteen years was him. My team – my friends – they all hated me, and they were right to. And Sk-" He cut himself off before he could finish the name, but Romanoff already could guess.

She didn't know much about this 'Skye'. Hill had mentioned she was Coulson's protege, the member of his team that Ward had held hostage, or kidnapped, for a short time after revealing himself as Hydra. An ex-Rising Tide hacker. One that S.H.I.E.L.D. had had precious little on even before she'd gone and wiped the files on her and on her entire team. Grant had been her S.O. and she'd even made it to officially being an Agent before...well, before everything had gone to hell.

Romanoff didn't know much about what had happened with the team during their time together, but, in this case, the pieces were pretty obvious. One and one made two.

Grant Ward. Skye.

He'd said he'd give the intel to her. Only her. Because he wanted to see her.

"And Skye?" she asked, prompting him to finish.

Ward said nothing, and Romanoff saw him start to close off. To shut down. He wasn't going to answer that one right now. She had to change the subject – a little, anyway.

"Why did you do it?" She asked, the inevitable question. She already knew why: John Garrett. Garrett had brainwashed Grant. It was the logical fit for his behavior, for the missing five years, for him. Maybe it was instinct. Grant was a master liar, who'd managed to have even her fooled her when it came to where his loyalties lay. Maybe she really was wrong.

 _B_ _ut Alexander Pierce had everyone including Fury fooled,_ _and he was_ _ **not**_ _as good a liar as Grant is._ Hydra loyalists across S.H.I.E.L.D. had stayed impossibly well hidden for decades. People who were good liars, and people who Romanoff would have – and still did – swear couldn't tell a lie to save their lives ended up being good liars. At least when it came to Hydra.

It was one of the basic tenants of intelligence work. The best way to keep a secret is for no one to know that there's a secret being kept. You slap a big red 'top secret' on a door and throw a few thousand locks onto it and everyone is going to want to know what's on the other side. But keep information so well hidden that no one knows there's information to be had?

 _You can't steal what you don't know they have._

It wasn't a foolproof strategy, but it was the one Hydra had apparently ridden to success in its infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D.

She could be wrong, but she didn't believe she was. She felt this even more so after seeing and talking to Grant.

"You say that your team were your friends. So why did you betray them?" Romanoff needed to hear his answer. Needed to hear him say it. See him say it.

But he didn't say anything.

"I'm willing to hear your answer, Grant. Has anyone else been willing? Has anyone else _cared_ enough to ask? If you want to be the man Garrett turned you into, then don't answer. That'd be all the answer I need."

"I owed John everything," Ward said. "He pulled me out of hell. He saved my life, saved me from myself. He was the only one who ever cared about me." His voice was firm again, but it wasn't emotionless. It was hollow. "I owed him everything. And in the end, that's what I gave him. My friends. My life. My soul."

"Right answer," Romanoff told him. "You did give him everything." She allowed herself the slightest of smiles. "But there's a funny thing about souls. When you give that up, it doesn't really end up in anyone else's hands. It just kind of sits there, waiting for you to pick it back up, clean it off as best you can."

She stepped away from the barrier, turning around and walking away a few paces. "You've heard the stories. I've even told you a handful. What I did, how I'm trying to make up for it. But the truth is, there's a lot of red in my ledger, and no matter how much good I do, nothing will ever blot it out." She'd known that well before her little 'conversation' with Loki on the Helicarrier. She'd expected he'd take a play like that once she used the phrase. He hadn't disappointed. "Coming to terms with that means I do one of two things. I let that red define me, or I can keep trying. Keep working. Keep trying to undo that red. To wipe the accounts clean, even if nothing will."

She turned to look directly at him. "There's a lot of red in your ledger too. It drips." Hers did more than that. "The question is: do you want to wipe it clean?"

"I don't deserve forgiveness Natasha. Not after what I did. Not after who I did it to," Grant replied softly. Romanoff saw the moment of yearning on the word forgiveness. He wanted it, but he didn't believe he deserved it. He probably didn't. Murderers like him and her didn't 'deserve' forgiveness. It was one of the lies people told about the way the world worked. She hadn't gotten it forgiveness from any of her victims, or the friends and family of her victims. And it was possible Grant would never get it from the people that he'd hurt the most. But forgiveness wasn't really the point.

"This isn't about forgiveness. That's not something you deserve, or something you earn for good behavior," she told him. "All the intel in the world won't make Skye or Coulson or anyone else forgive you. Not if they're determined to hate you because they still see the traitor, the serial killer, the monster when they look at you. This is about you. About being able to look at yourself in the mirror and accept what you see. About being more than what you were, but knowing that you'll always be that too."

"You're a killer, Grant. You made mistakes, and all that was compounded by what Garrett did to you." Romanoff walked back up to the laser barrier. "Your ledger drips red. If you want to try to blot it out, to try to settle your accounts, then I can give you that chance." Even if she had to break him out of the cell. "Think about it."

Leaving him to do just that, Romanoff turned around and left Vault D. She'd be back. Back for his answer, and back to get him out of that cell and out of this base, if he decided he wanted to be able to look at himself in the mirror again.

If he decided to try – to try and try and never quite succeed – to blot out the red in his ledger.


	2. Digging Deeper

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Agents of S.H. .D. I don't own anything from the MCU, be it the TV shows, or the movies. Or anything else.

 **Note 1:** Unlike 'A Different Choice', this fic centers on slightly different interpretation of Grant Ward. Namely, that he actually _is_ fundamentally a good person – or at least, has the necessary psychological tools to be a good person. The Grant Ward of 'A Different Choice' is a man who starts out with little true personality (though some exists, Garrett wore most of it away) and with not much in the way of a native moral compass. The Grant Ward of Ledger Dripping Red is both simultaneously less damaged (because he has a stronger moral compass and more of actual personality that is his own) and more damaged (because he's utterly lost and alone since he betrayed the team and everything and you know, tried to kill himself three times.) So this is not going to be the same Ward you met in 'A Different Choice', if you've read that fic. Its an important conceptual framework to keep in mind.

 **Note 2:** This fic, especially in parts, won't be entirely friendly to Coulson and Skye (and to a lesser extent, May, Simmons and Fitz). It won't always be friendly to Ward either. Whatever my feelings towards these characters, which are complex and multilayered, the reality is that these are flawed people who've made a bucketload of mistakes and people will call each other out on them, so no one is going to come out of this smelling like roses.

 **Note 3:** For reasons that are obvious when you see the section, quite some dialogue is cribbed from Episode 2x01, "Shadows".

Thanks to Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading this chapter.

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 2: Digging Deeper

 **Director Coulson's Office, The Playground**

 **September 28th, 2014**

Natasha Romanoff had signed onto the new S.H.I.E.L.D.

Well, she hadn't _yet._ She had a few last arrangements to make, but she had agreed to join. And agreed to talk Barton into signing up as well.

It was quite the success. Coulson knew there were that some in the agency he was slowly rebuilding who, despite their loyalty to S.H.I. . and its ideals, weren't entirely confident in his leadership. Not anyone here at this base, but he did have agents beyond the ones here at the headquarters, beyond his old team. Fortunately, he still had the confidence of his team.

But being able to say that he had two of the most dangerously effective agents in the history of the agency back on board? That would help.

It was more than just 'office politics' motivating him, of course. With their help, they'd be able to hurt Hydra more often and save additional lives. Plus, he'd worked closely with Barton and Romanoff before his death, and he looked forward to working with them again.

 _Even if Romanoff is apparently convinced that Ward deserves a second chance. Even after a face to face._ Coulson was regretting cutting the cameras and recorders in the room, but he'd given her his word, and he'd done it. Fortunately, no one else was checking the feed at the time, so he hadn't had anyone asking him what the temporary shutdown was about.

What was it that had Romanoff so convinced? She was one of the best Agents he'd ever known, and was certainly not someone he'd have expected to fall for Ward's act.

On the bright side, the Russian woman hadn't insisted Ward be released or anything drastic like that. But she had requested – well, demanded – a copy of all the security footage from Ward's cell. He'd handed it over to her willingly. Maybe if she saw his recalcitrance, his lack of guilt, maybe that would persuade her where his own words hadn't.

For some reason though, Coulson doubted it.

 _She knows something about Ward we don't._

Coulson had been forced to stop and think about Romanoff's words, because...the former assassin had a point. She had killed more people than Ward, during her pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. career. And yet he'd supported Barton's call to spare her life, to bring her into S.H.I.E.L.D. And he didn't hold Barton's whole 'attack on the Helicarrier' against him either. Even though the attack was what had allowed Loki to escape his cell and kill him.

 _Of course, Barton was brainwashed. Being controlled by Loki thanks to that staff of his._ A staff that S.H.I.E.L.D. had yet to find since the collapse of the agency. Unaccounted for, and _probably_ in the hands of Hydra.

And wasn't _that_ a pleasant thought.

So yes, it was personal. He didn't think Ward deserved a second chance – Romanoff had never _betrayed_ S.H.I.E.L.D. And Barton hadn't had control of his own mind.

It didn't take an expert in human psychology to know that he was angry at Ward. Well, more than that, really. But still – Ward was a liar, a murderer and a traitor. He'd had an opportunity to talk, but he'd never taken it. Coulson had contemplated torture, but despite May's occasional hints, he hadn't sanctioned it. It wouldn't have worked, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had to be better than that.

Then... out of the blue, Ward had actually spoken during one of their sessions. He had said he was willing to share intel. But only with Skye.

And since the intel had proven to be useful...

He was going to have to send her down again. He couldn't ignore the asset that Ward represented. As Director, he _had_ to use whatever resources he had on hand. Even if that meant subjecting Skye to the emotional turmoil of being in the same room with Ward. In a perfect world, Skye could have continued pretending that Ward didn't exist.

 _Well, no. In a perfect world, S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't have fallen, Ward wouldn't have turned out to be a sociopath and I wouldn't be Director._ Coulson would rather Fury or Hill had this job. He'd do it, but he'd never wanted the Director's chair.

Because being in the Director's chair meant he had a responsibility to make decisions he really, really didn't want to make.

 _Why is Romanoff convinced enough of Ward's...worthiness for redemption that she even set him as her price?_ Coulson knew full well the 'Black Widow' could have demanded just about any price she wanted, as her 'signing bonus'. So why had she set the price as a meeting with Ward? There had to a reason why she thought he even deserved a chance at a second chance.

 _And she still came out thinking that he does._

Because that was one more thing that Romanoff was right about. Coulson wasn't one to just...stop digging. When something didn't make sense, he looked for answers. When he didn't have answers, he asked questions. And when he didn't know the questions to ask, he dug until he found them.

And yet, when it came to Ward, he hadn't even _looked_ for answers. He'd just thrown Ward into a cell and set about pumping him for information once his larynx was healed.

They would have started the pumping for information even sooner, but after Ward's attempt on his life with the folded paper, that hadn't really been an option.

Coulson owed it to himself to understand to understand _why._ Even if the answer was really a simple 'he's evil', as Skye was convinced. Even if the answer was that Ward was just Garrett's personal attack dog. Whatever the answer, he owed it to himself, and he owed it to the rest of the team to find out.

But there wasn't much information.

Unfortunately, it looked like the only way to get what information was to ask Ward. This was, of course, extremely problematic because Coulson could hardly believe a word he said. Which left him with what was, in some ways, an even less desirable option.

Twenty minutes later, Coulson heard a knock on his door. "Come in." He looked up from his desk, and wasn't surprised to see Skye there.

Immediately, he had second thoughts.

 _I can't put Skye through this._ Just because Romanoff thought that something was the case – that didn't make it true. Not even close. He didn't have a responsibility to dig. The answers were right there.

Weren't they?

 _But you devoted your entire life to a deranged narcissist who never gave a damn about anyone, and now he's dead. You've got the rest of your life to wrestle with the question... who are you without him?_

Those weren't answers. Just...unanswered questions and not even well-formed questions at that.

Why _had_ Ward devoted his life to Garrett? What happened to make Ward so devoted to the man that he didn't abandon him even when Garrett went off the deep end completely? He still fought for him when he was hopelessly outgunned, hopelessly outnumbered.

Who was Grant Ward without John Garrett was an important question.

But there was another question.

Who was Grant Ward _with_ John Garrett?

"May said you needed me for something?" Skye asked, moving to stand in front of his desk, her posture so similar to May's. Coulson wondered if it was deliberate or unconscious. Had Skye adopted so many of May's small mannerisms more or less by osmosis, or was she _trying_ to echo May?

Coulson wasn't sure which possibility troubled him more. The girl he'd first picked up in L.A. - that bright and curious girl who had been so idealistic and optimistic about everything. How far away was she now, as a result of Ward's betrayal?

"I do." Coulson nodded. Skye must have guessed at least part of his intent from his expression and tone – both of which Coulson guessed were similar to the last time he'd asked to have anything to do with Ward.

"You need me to go down to Vault D again." Skye said flatly. She didn't make it a question.

"No. I don't," Coulson replied. "Not right now anyway. But it does relate to Ward." Skye's expression didn't change at the mention of her former S.O.'s name. "But what I do need is for you to find every piece of information you can about him. Every tiny scrap about Grant Ward that exists anywhere in any computer system you can access."

"Why?"

He couldn't tell her why. This was – this was just a perfunctory move. There was nothing in that past that could reasonably make Ward deserve a second chance. Romanoff was wrong. And once he had the information, he'd be able to prove it once and for all. He could show Romanoff that she was tilting at windmills and then everyone could move on.

His silence invited more questions.

"Does it have anything to do with the cameras and recorders in his cell shutting down for a few minutes earlier today?"

Coulson blinked. "You were watching his cell?"

"No." Skye shook her head, sounding either disgusted or offended by the suggestion. "I was reviewing the feed when you sent May down to get me."

Now it was Coulson's turn to ask the one word question. "Why?"

"You told me I would have to go down there again if turned out that he was telling the truth about the way Hydra was communicating," Skye replied flatly. "If I'm going to have to interrogate him again, I need to get inside his head."

And again, Coulson regretted sending Skye down there.

"I'm sorry Skye. If there was any other way-" He started, but Skye shook her head.

"It has to be done." To Coulson's ears, it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "Like you said, we kept him here for a reason. Why did you shut down the cameras?" She swallowed a moment. "Did something happen down there that you didn't want to risk anyone else seeing?"

The question was implicit: 'Was he tortured?'

Coulson shook his head. "Nothing like that. Call it... a private conversation." Let her think it was his conversation. "But yes, it's related to my request. But I can't tell you why I'm asking." Ward had hurt her enough as it was. Ward's betrayal and its consequences had affected all of them – even May – and Coulson didn't want to give the man a chance to hurt Skye even more, even by proxy. She didn't need to know that there was _anyone_ in the world who mistakenly wanted to give Ward a second chance.

"You can't just ask me to do this and not tell me why." Skye replied. "Besides, I wiped everything there was on him."

"Everyone leaves a trace, Skye," Coulson replied. "Ward didn't come from nowhere. He had family. He went to military school. He went to the Academy. He has dozens of aliases. Everything. Even you don't think a piece of information is important – I want it all on my desk as soon as possible."

Skye looked at him, then nodded stiffly. "Alright." She didn't sound happy.

But then...she rarely did these days. None of them did.

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 2nd, 2014**

There wasn't much to Grant's security footage to watch. The first month and change saw only a few conversations between Grant and anyone, because his larynx was still damaged at the time. And while it bothered her that he'd had his voice taken from him, given what she knew and suspected, she couldn't really hold it against Agent May.

Sure, 'The Cavalry' had probably been happy about it, and likely more than a little pleased it had happened, but it wasn't like she'd done it to him when he was a prisoner. It was in the middle of a fight for her life.

What _had_ happened during that period when Grant had no voice, though. That did more than bother her. Seeing Grant actually try to kill himself. Breaking the button in half and using it to cut his wrists.

At least whoever Coulson had watching the cameras noticed quickly enough.

It hadn't taken Grant long to try the paper. Given that it had been delivered with a box of crayons, the reason he'd had it was fairly obvious. They couldn't give pens or pencils to a suicidal man, but they wanted information.

Rather than answer the questions of an unsympathetic, uncaring Coulson, Grant had said nothing, and folded the paper. Coulson hadn't even given Ward two days to recover from his first attempted suicide before starting to interrogate him.

Being saved from death a second time hadn't stopped him from trying a third time. Running at the walls, over and over and over. Trying to break his skull, to damage himself to the point where he'd be dead, or at least in a coma.

But when he was finally returned to his cell that third time, he was done with the attempts on his own life. And he could speak again. Or at least, that's what Coulson read out of a medical chart.

Grant didn't say anything in the almost daily sessions they had with him. If it wasn't Coulson, it was May, but only those two. Others went into the cell to deliver food, but no one else went in to interrogate him.

Romanoff watched each one of those sessions. A half-hour of questions, half-hour of silence. Well, a half-hour of questions from May. From Coulson, the questions were interspersed with rants, and lectures, about what Grant did, about how much damage he'd done after dedicating his life to a 'deranged narcissist'. He'd told Grant he was a sociopath, and that even if he talked, he wasn't getting out of this cell. That he was going to rot there.

 _Did Coulson actually think that was going to work_? Grant's betrayal had pissed Coulson off even more than she'd guessed.

The session where Grant finally spoke was one she'd rewatched a few times. Unlike most of the others, this one was short.

She watched as Coulson came into view of the camera, sitting down in the chair and looking at Grant, who was standing on the other side of the laser-grid, hands by his side, stiff, motionless. He was like that for every interrogation session.

"We've been at this for weeks, Ward." Coulson sounded... more exhausted than angry. She'd noticed that developing over time. Being Director – it had taken its toll on him. Certainly more than dying had. "May thinks we're wasting our time. Tells me that I should stop trying – when she's not hinting we should torture you."

At least Coulson was that much of the man she remembered. Romanoff was prepared to torture someone if she had to, but Coulson – he wasn't. And he didn't turn a blind eye to it the way some agents did with their specialists.

"So what is it going to take for you to talk? Or should I just stop coming down here?"

Romanoff didn't know why in particular Grant chose this time to make the request. It wasn't the first time Coulson had brought the conversation around to this question. She couldn't see into Grant's head – if she could, this would be a great deal easier.

Of course, if she could see into people's heads, then a lot of things would be easier.

"Maybe you should," Grant told him expressionlessly.

"So that's it, then?" Coulson asked, apparently unfazed by Grant suddenly speaking after weeks of silence. "You're so loyal to Garrett and to Hydra that you won't tell us their secrets, even though Garrett's dead? I always thought you could think for yourself. But I guess-"

The first time she'd watched this, Romanoff had expected Coulson to start off on another of his rants, but instead, Grant cut the other man off.

"I'm more than willing to hand over information." Grant replied, his voice more or less empty and toneless. "To Skye."

That got a reaction from Coulson. Complete and utter incredulity. "You want me to send Skye down here? The same room as you? Put her through that? After everything you did to her?" Romanoff had been watching Grant's reactions carefully, and she saw the pain in his eyes for a fleeting second.

"If you want intelligence, you will, sooner or later." Grant told Coulson. "And I'm done talking." For the first time during one of these little sessions, Grant walked away from the laser-grid and sat on the cot.

Coulson left less than a minute later.

After that, there were two more attempts by May to ask questions. But Grant was even less responsive than before – he didn't get up, didn't walk away from the cot, barely even registered May's presence. And then...

No one came down for weeks. Until finally, Skye did.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" This time, there really was emotion in Grant's voice. Relief, like a man in a desert finding water.

Skye sat down in the chair, her back straight, perched on the edge. Perhaps understandably, the woman was tense. It was pretty obvious that she didn't want to be there. _She doesn't know the truth._ And if she wasn't a trained Agent, she wouldn't grasp a rather vital detail: the Grant Ward she knew would have been mostly the truth. It was the only way a deep-cover operation could last.

"I told Coulson weeks ago that I was willing to speak to you," Grant continued. "To give you intelligence. Why now?" Unless Romanoff missed her guess...

Grant hadn't expected Skye to come down.

"Something bad happen?"

"Carl Creel?" Romanoff didn't recognize the name. "Garrett reported him dead, turns out he's alive, do you have any information on that?" Now it was Skye's turn to try and sound emotionless. She wasn't really succeeding. It was a nice effort, but she couldn't hide the anger, disgust and hatred.

"How've you been?" Grant asked softly. Skye got up, starting to walk, and Romanoff saw the lost expression that passed across Grant's face for a split second. Hastily – too hastily for it to be anything but genuine, for her money – he added: "The name sounds familiar. Do you have a picture?" Skye pressed a few buttons on her tablet and brought it up to the grid. And then Skye's gaze fell to his wrists, just as hers had.

"Coulson didn't tell you." No surprise in the tone. No question. "I went through a...rough stretch." Now that... that sounded like the Grant Ward she knew. Most people wouldn't call three suicide attempts a 'rough stretch'. She watched as Grant detailed the attempts on his own life.

"When they took that away, I started running at the walls."

"You should have run faster."

That this girl would say that to him – how much hate did she have to have to essentially mock suicide? She didn't know the details of Grant's past, about what Garrett had put him through – but something like that? Did she think it was all fake? Did she think he should be dead?

Did she want him to start it up again?

Romanoff had watched the rest of the recording, but it didn't really matter. Even if Grant deserved to stay locked up, even if he didn't deserve a chance to make up for his actions – which he _did_ _–_ he needed to be held somewhere away from his team. Away from that kind of toxicity. It would only drive him over the edge again.

After meeting with him, Romanoff had already decided Grant Ward should have an opportunity to deal with the red in his ledger. But -

The way Skye had spoken to him, the way Coulson had spoken to him. They were taking an emotionally damaged individual and tearing him apart more. A victim of brainwashing, and they were leaving him to drown.

Clearly, Coulson was still not the same guy he'd been before he'd died. Maybe it was being Director, or maybe he was just that affected by Grant's betrayal. But-

And Skye. She almost understood her perspective – she and Grant had been close, and a betrayal from those closest hurts the most, or so the common sense went.

But still – the level of hatred, the sheer inability to see that Grant wasn't some unrepentant murdering monster. Romanoff had _seen_ plenty of those. Grant didn't qualify.

She was getting him out of there.


	3. I Don't Want To Know

**Disclaimer:** If I owned the MCU – The Winter Soldier would have been a very different movie. That's really what it comes down to.

 **Note:** Normally I'd be waiting a few more days to put this up, but I just got let go yesterday from my job (shitty and minimum wage as it may have been, it was still my source of you know, rent money and food money) and I'm in an increasingly bad mood about it. So I'm posting this today because reviews/comments/etc make me feel better.

Thanks to Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading this chapter

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 3: I Don't Want To Know

 **Skye's Room, The Playground**

 **October 2nd, 2014**

For the first time in her life, Skye wished she wasn't as good with computers as she was.

It was a thought she'd never thought she'd have, but staring at the screen of her laptop, it was a thought she was having.

Because if she hadn't been _so damn_ thorough in wiping Ward from the internet, she could have filled this request for AC in a few hours and be done with it. She wouldn't have to think about him – she could have spent some of that time pretending Ward didn't exist. That he had never existed. That he hadn't made her fall in love with him and then turned out to be a lying murdering traitorous Nazi bastard. That he hadn't torn her heart out and made it feel like it was impossible to trust anyone with it again.

It wasn't easy to pretend, but those few hours when she was able to pretend, to not think about him – they were precious. Because the other option was a hell of a lot worse.

And now she couldn't help but think about him. Because for the last four days, that had been her entire job.

 _But what I do need is for you to find every piece of information you can about him. Every tiny scrap about Grant Ward that exists anywhere in any computer system you can access._

Coulson's words echoed in her mind, and it drove her crazy that she didn't know what the hell he wanted. That he wouldn't tell her. And that 'private' conversation he'd had. If Ward was suddenly talking to Coulson, would she ever need to go back down into Vault D to get intel from him? If the universe was even remotely kind, she wouldn't have to.

 _Then again, has anything happened in the last year that gives me any reason to think that the universe is 'kind'?_

The answer to that question, of course, was a resounding no.

Skye had found out a few things about Ward, but not much. A few old newspaper and magazine articles, old TV interview transcripts that mentioned the middle Ward child when they discussed Congressman Johnathon Ward, but never in any detail.

Everything she'd found out about the no-longer-in-office daddy Johnathon and older brother Christian, now a Senator, only made her get the impression that the pair of them were exactly the kind of soulless, unprincipled jackasses that made people not trust politicians in the first place.

 _I guess Ward had to get it from somewhere._

She checked each of those articles, skimming them, putting them into the file for Coulson, but then she found something strange: right around the time Ward would have been 16... he's no longer mentioned at all. Johnathon Ward never talks about a son named Grant. Christian never speaks of a 'Grant'. A 'Thomas', yes, that youngest brother, but never a Grant. It was as if he didn't exist to his family. Or to the rest of the world.

She finally found something that might be an answer when she came across a newspaper article in a local Massachusetts paper, buried in the back pages.

 **Ward Family Home Burned To The Ground**

The headline was what caught her eye. Rather than just adding it to the file, she read it. It mentioned that Christian Ward was in the house, but was unharmed. But no mention of who started it. But the date:

Right before Grant Ward fell off the map for his family.

 _So he was always a killer, then._ Even as a kid.

She searched more around that date, and found a petition, filed by Christian Ward to have his brother tried as an adult for arson and attempted murder. Which meant that the legal system knew that Ward had done it. Had him in custody. Was going to try him.

And yet five years later he was at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, without a criminal conviction – Skye had read his file well before she'd wiped it and never seen any mention of it. Not even a hint or a vague reference.

And of course, there was no court case.

So what happened?

The answer came to her when she saw another bit of news from a few weeks later. It didn't mention Ward at all but it did mention the Juvenile Detention Center in Plymouth Massachusetts where Ward would have ended up.

It was attacked. Attacked by unknown men with a half-dozen prisoners, all unnamed, now on the loose. Well, 'now' as of when the article was written.

That answered why his attempted murder, his incarceration wasn't in his S.H.I.E.L.D. file.

 _Hydra wiped it from his file. Kept it hidden._ She wondered why that hadn't been the first thought to come to her mind.

Ward was always Hydra. They must've realized what a sick bastard he was and plucked him out of Juvie. Inducted him into their little Nazi Death-Cult and sent him into S.H.I.E.L.D.

Always a liar. Always a monster. And she'd trusted him.

She'd fallen for the emotionless, by the book act. She'd fallen for his 'Grant Ward, stalwart Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.' act She'd fallen for the act as he 'slowly opened up', as he 'let her in'. As he became more and more 'personable'. The way he'd saved Simmons life, put himself on the line to save the team time and again. Acted like he cared. Cared about her, about FitzSimmons, about the team.

She'd fallen for his act, she'd fallen for his looks, and she'd fallen for him.

And the entire time – _the entire time_ he was lying to everyone around him. From the moment he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. all the way to now. He lied.

And from the start, Grant Ward was a sick, murderous little bastard. Always a psychopath.

Skye shoved the information into the file and set her laptop on the bed, stepping away from it. She needed some air – as much as she could get on this base, anyway – and she needed to get away from anything to do with Ward. Just, just for a little while. An hour, at least. She couldn't think about him. Couldn't think about him, about Garrett, about Hydra.

She didn't want to wonder what happened to Ward in those five years between Juvie and the Ops Academy. She didn't want to wonder about Ward or about anything to do with him.

So she didn't. She refused to let herself think on it, think on him. On any questions. Ward was a monster. A murderer. A traitor. A psychopath. He was evil. That's all there was. All there could be.

 _You fell in love with a guy who seemed almost too good to be true because he fucking was._

Skye couldn't think about that. So she didn't.

 **Coulson's Office, The Playground**

 **October 3rd, 2014**

This time, Skye didn't knock.

She just barged into his office and dropped a thick file onto his desk. Coulson looked up at her. She was angry, eyes narrow, mouth clenched tightly, lips thin. Whether she was angry at him, angry at Ward or angry at...everything that was happening, he couldn't tell. Probably all of the above.

"Everything on Ward. School yearbook photos, his family, every little scrap. All there. Happy?" She turned around without another word and left before he had a chance to say anything back.

 _I suppose I may have deserved that_. He'd known what having her dig into Ward's history would do to her, but there just hadn't been anyone else to give the assignment to. If there was anyone who could find information on Ward after Skye had wiped him so thoroughly, it was Skye herself.

Coulson looked at the still closed file. It was thicker than he'd thought it would be. But then, Skye was always through and she'd been at it for nearly five days. He picked it up in his hands.

 _Somewhere in this file is the information that has Romanoff convinced Ward deserves a second chance. And the information she thinks that will do the same for me, that I would have already known if I'd dug deeper sooner._

Well, one could only imagine the information was in here. Somehow, somewhere, Romanoff had found something that had convinced her to come here and demand to see Ward.

And something in that meeting had convinced her that Ward deserved a second chance. Unless he missed his guess, anyway, and he was really hoping he had. He was really hoping Romanoff didn't believe that anymore. But he doubted it.

And that was what was bothering him. What had been bothering him for days, ever since Romanoff's visit. Because Natasha "The Black Widow" Romanoff was a damn good agent. Arguably the best, and she wasn't given to sentimentality. Yes, Ward had saved her life three times, which had to influence her opinion – she was always loyal to people who had saved her life, paying loyalty back with loyalty. That loyalty would have been enough for her to start digging, to come here and demand that meeting. Demand a chance to evaluate him for herself, firsthand.

But it wouldn't have been enough for her to believe he deserved a second chance after a meeting with him just on that loyalty. She knew something – something big – and something had happened in that meeting. She was too good to let sentimentality get in the way.

And frankly, he had trouble believing that Ward had successfully lied to her, fooled her into believing in him. Very, very few had ever successfully lied to Romonoff when she was actually questioning them, when she was actually looking for lies.

Of course, one of the few people who could probably lie to her successfully was Grant Ward.

Which brought the whole damn train of thought back around to the fact that Grant Ward was a traitor. A liar. A murderer. He didn't deserve a second chance. He didn't deserve anything resembling the general neighborhood of anything that vaguely _looked_ _like_ a second chance! Not after what he'd done.

If he'd wanted even the slightest chance at redemption, he'd have spilled his guts the first chance he was given. Instead, he'd stayed silent as question after question was asked of him.

 _And while you repeatedly told him that even if he talked he wasn't getting out of that cell._

He'd realized some time ago that that had been a mistake. And a rookie one at that.

Even if you have no intention of freeing a prisoner, regardless of their co-operation or lackthereof – which was the case with Ward – you still didn't tell them that. You didn't lie to them, because that would end up just as bad in the long run. It was a basic rule of interrogation, in was in the same vein as telling someone that you were going to kill them as soon as they told you all the information that you were trying to get. It was a surefire way to get them to shut down. It removed all incentive.

 _But if he really wanted redemption, he'd have told us everything. Without needing any sort of incentive, any sort of chance to get out of the cell, and **without** seeing Skye as his price. _ Ward was unrepentant. A repentant man didn't make demands and certainly not demands like that.

Unlike May, Coulson was willing to entertain the possibility that Ward really had had genuine feelings – maybe even love – for Skye, in some sick and twisted way. May and probably Skye believed that he just thought Skye would be the weak link, the easiest to manipulate. That he could play on the feelings she'd had for him, get her sympathy. Coulson was also willing to consider that possibility – and he was more than happy to let Skye think that, to foster that perception in her. After everything that had happened, with everything that was still happening, the last thing she needed to think was that the psychopath in their basement really might love her.

Coulson wasn't naive enough to believe that love was somehow a quality that was unique to good people, that only good people could love. That evil people couldn't love. That was wrong. Evil people were just as capable of love – he'd seen too many otherwise monstrous people interacting with their spouses or children to think otherwise.

But it didn't change a thing. Whether he wanted to see her because he really did have feelings for her or because he thought he could manipulate her, he wouldn't set her as the price or his intel if he'd been truly repentant. If he'd really wanted to make up for his crimes.

If Coulson hadn't made the amateur – if all too human – mistake of letting his anger, hatred and disgust get the better of him, he might have been able to crack Ward, to get intel from him without sending Skye down there. Without subjecting Skye to that.

But he _had_ let his anger, hatred and disgust get the better of him. It was personal. Romanoff really had been right about that.

But that didn't change the fact that Ward was unrepentant! That even if he was, there was nothing he could do to make up for what he'd done.

If it had just been killing Hand, Koenig and the other agents, maybe, _maybe_ he could have someday earned the chance to make up for what he did. Earned the chance to win a measure of redemption, maybe even a little actual redemption, Romanoff had killed Agents after all. She'd killed a lot of people.

But Ward had done more than that. He'd kidnapped Skye, dropped FitzSimmons into the ocean – he'd turned on the very people who had relied on him for protection. He'd been loyal to John Garrett to the end – so loyal that he'd stuck by the insane psychopath all the way to the end.

There was no forgiving that. No coming back from that.

Coulson let the file drop onto the desk with a light thud. A small part of him, the part of him that had insisted that Akela Amador, Skye and Mike Peterson deserved second chances wondered if Romanoff had a point. A small one anyway. Ward had done terrible things but maybe there was a more complicated explanation? He owed it to himself to understand it, if it existed. And if it did, perhaps there really was room for Ward to deserve a shot at redemption. A small shot at a small amount, but still...

Romanoff had a habit of being right. Could she be right about this. Could she at least be a little bit right?

No. _No._ Ward was a psychopath. She had to be wrong.

 _You know how often I'm right about things like this._ A voice that sounded suspiciously like Romanoff pointed out in the back of his mind.

And it was that voice, the possibility that she was right and he was wrong that made him not want to open the file. After everything Ward had done, after the team had been completely shattered by his actions, his betrayal, he didn't want to think about the possibility that Ward _did_ deserve a chance at redemption. A chance to 'wipe the red from his ledger' as Romanoff might put it. It was a proposition he did not want to contemplate. A possibility he did not want to subject Fitz, or Skye or Billy Koenig to.

 _I don't want to know if there's something in Ward's past that explains it. I don't want to know about the 'five years' Romanoff mentioned. I don't want to know what she's talking about when she said that Garrett had to brainwash Ward the old fashioned way. I don't want to understand him. I want to hate him. It's simpler. He's everything that happened to S.H.I.E.L.D. in one person. The lies, the betrayal, the evil._

Coulson had never articulated the thought like that.

And he looked down at his hands, as if suddenly not recognizing them as he realized what it was he had just thought. What it was he had just articulated.

 _Do I really hate Ward that much? That I'm willing to just – ignore truth if its inconvenient?_

Coulson had always valued truth. Yes, secrets were necessary. Yes, lies had to be told to protect those secrets at times. But truth – truth was important.

And here he was, wanting to ignore what could be an inconvenient truth about Grant Ward. And that -

Coulson looked at his hands a moment longer, then lowered them to the desk. A split-second of...epiphany came to him as he realized what he'd been thinking. As he realized that he'd let Ward change him that much.

Ever since Hydra had come out of the shadows, had destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson had held onto one singular thought. That Hydra could never win.

Hydra could never win as long as there was one solitary agent left who still held to the ideals of S.H.I.E.L.D. The ideals of protection. The ideals of doing the right thing, of sacrificing of oneself for the greater good. The ideals of doing what had to be done – but understanding that even necessary actions came with a cost, that they couldn't be done lightly.

But...

If he could let Ward change him this much. Make him hate so much - Hate so much that he abandoned his ideals. Then Hydra could win.

 _What if Ward had succeeded in killing FitzSimmons? Would I have let May torture him?_

That was a chilling thought, and one he didn't want to have. He didn't want to contemplate the possibility that Hydra could push him, push S.H.I.E.L.D. so far that they became just as bad as Hydra in their methods.

The ends could, at times, justify given means. But only justify. Never excuse. And there was a limit to how much could be justified.

Coulson took a breath and opened the file.

 **Coulson's Office, The Playground**

 **October 3rd, 2014**

Coulson closed the file.

He was really wishing he hadn't read it. He was really wishing that Romanoff hadn't arrived, hadn't raised doubts, hadn't forced him to try and step outside of everything, hadn't more or less made him have Skye create this file. Hadn't raised enough doubts that he'd more or less shamed himself into reading a file with more questions than answers.

Coulson knew the details of Ward's family. His older brother, his parents. S.H.I.E.L.D. had never had either the proof or the interest to make anything of it, but that was often the case. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew a background and a psychological profile that bespoke abuse when it saw one.

So when he'd seen the report on the burning of the Ward home, and Skye's note that all mention of Grant Ward stopped at this point, he didn't think it was just some random act, unprovoked. Christian had done something and it had prompted Ward, who really _had_ been at Military School at that point, to burn down the house, with Christian in it.

What Ward did – that wasn't okay. But the petition to have him tried as an adult? The description Christian gave of his brother, why he was so dangerous as to need to be tried as an adult and needed to be in prison for as long as possible. Coulson didn't believe a word of it. But arson and attempted murder weren't okay.

Which was why Ward should have served his Juvenile Hall sentence, then been let out, like the law was supposed to do. But if he'd been tried as an adult – a sixteen year old kid subjected to a lifetime of abuse, he'd be facing at least a decade, probably more. For something that didn't merit that much.

Coulson thought back to that first conversation he'd had with Ward, discussing his file.

 _Under "people skills," she drew a... I think it's a little poop, with knives sticking out of it. That's bad, right? And given your family history, I'm surprised it's not worse._

He'd always thought Ward really had shown a remarkable recovery from his past. But...maybe that wasn't the case. Maybe he hadn't recovered at all.

He also saw the report on the attack on the juvenile detention center – and something else he'd seen in the file suddenly hit him.

One of the instructors at Ward's Military School, the Quartermaster... Coulson recognized the name. It was one the Marines that Garrett had worked with in the first half of the 90s, when he'd liaised with the U.S. military quite a lot, in the same general way Coulson liaised with the Peruvian National Police. A guy Garrett had referred to as a buddy more than once.

A picture Coulson didn't want to imagine was starting to emerge. He could just see the conversation, the offer: Stay in prison, serve a decade or more, let your family win, come out a felon with no future. Or come with me.

Coulson knew Garrett. He knew the way he worked, the way he persuaded people – he was slow about it. He'd start with one thing, then the next, then suddenly he almost has you believing that throwing Ian Quinn out of the plane was your idea.

 _I should have taken that as a red flag, if nothing else._

Garrett wouldn't have presented a young Ward with a choice of 'prison or my evil organization bent on mass murder and world domination'.

He'd have been slow. He'd taken a broken kid who had been beaten down his whole life.

And as Romanoff had said, Garrett had had five years with Ward.

Five years to bend him to his will.

Coulson had no idea if this was right. This was supposition. Theory. He didn't want to believe it. Didn't want feel the fragments of sympathy he was feeling for Ward. He didn't want to be reminded that Grant Ward was a human being, and that humans were never one-dimensional, that humans had motives, that humans did things for reasons. Usually, complex ones.

It was much simpler to just stamp Ward as a 'Hydra Psychopath' and file him into a box labeled 'Evil'. It was much easier to do that for everyone who had joined Hydra.

It didn't excuse what Ward had done. It didn't even mean that Ward really deserved a second chance. But...

Coulson wasn't the person who should be making that call. There was a reason the victim of a crime, or the friends and family and loved ones of the victim of a crime weren't allowed to decide the sentence. Why they weren't on juries. Because that wasn't justice.

It was revenge.

Even after reading this – it didn't change anything. He _hated_ Ward. He wanted Ward to suffer.

And even if those weren't true, there was no way he could verify the theory, the theory Romanoff had obviously formed. The only options were to hold a séance and talk to Garrett, which would hardly work, or go down and ask Ward. But Coulson couldn't trust a damn word that came out of that man's mouth. Not after he'd lied. And lied. And lied.

There was no way that he could know if Ward... Romanoff was convinced. He couldn't be. Either because it was too personal, and it was blinding him. Or maybe because he knew Ward – the real Ward – now and Romanoff was the one who was wrong.

But the only way to find out... There would have to be conditions. Constraints. They needed the intel in Ward's head. If he was released into Romanoff's custody, she'd have to agree to get all that info.

Of course, the threat of Ward escaping her custody was a possibility. He'd never be able to actually 'get past' her but even the best couldn't be everywhere. But they could take precautions against that. Even their laser-grid cell wasn't perfect. Nothing was.

If Romanoff wanted Ward, she could have him.

 **Entrance, the Playground**

 **October 4th, 1999**

Romanoff got into the base the same way she'd gotten in before. This time, though, she didn't especially care if someone saw her. She wasn't going to bother with stealth. If Koenig raised a fuss because she didn't have a lanyard... well, she wasn't going to be here for long.

But she was leaving here with Grant.


	4. Take Him

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own AoS. End of story. Moving on. I don't own any of the movies that have had Black Widow. Or we'd have a Black Widow movie instead of a third Cap movie.

 **Note:** Unlike some people, I don't condemn Skye (at least, not very severely) for the 'run faster' comment or think it was out of character for her. I think if we look at the place her head was at the moment, the comment makes perfect sense – I still think it was wrong, and she deserves to be called out and shamed for it, but seriously, try putting yourself in Skye's shoes. Of course you'd want to hurt Ward as much as he'd hurt you. Might you not say those words? Possibly. But you'd have found another possibility. You're human, not some perfect Avatar of Justice. That's Tyrael. Skye is human – she's flawed. She said something terrible, and the writing should have shown that, but she's still Skye, and it doesn't mean she's a terrible, terrible person.

Romanoff, on the other hand, doesn't have any particular reason to care – she doesn't know Skye, doesn't know what happened with the same detail, isn't in Skye's head, doesn't understand all the details we the viewer understands.

Thanks to Colormeblue/Riley Holden for beta-reading this chapter.

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 4: Take Him

 **The Playground**

 **October 4th, 2014**

Unlike the previous time she'd visited the Playground, Romanoff didn't bother with stealth. She just walked right through the halls of the base. She went straight for Coulson's office – but she didn't manage it without running into someone.

"Agent Romanoff," Billy Koenig started, trying – and failing – to keep up with her quick pace. "What an unexpected pleasure; I didn't know you were coming."

"You didn't know I've already been here." Romanoff pointed out. "And no, I don't need a lanyard."

"Agent Romanoff, _everyone_ has to have a lanyard – even Fury would, if he came here." Romanoff resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Koenig's words. Instead, while still moving she looked at him and spoke in perfect deadpan.

"And if Fury did show up and said he didn't need a lanyard, would you force the issue?"

Koenig blinked. "Ahm... well... I mean-"

"Exactly. I'm not going to be here for all that long, and I don't intend to come back on a regular basis." Romanoff picked up her pace, soon turning into what seemed to be some sort of central lounge. Completely unable to keep up with her stride, Koenig fell behind, sputtering a little at her complete refusal to get a lanyard.

There was only one person in the lounge. Romanoff recognized her immediately. The hacker – Skye. Romanoff had no intention of talking to the girl; there was no point in trying to convince her of anything. Given her conduct in that interview with Grant, she'd clearly made up her mind, whatever Grant had felt had felt for her – and maybe still did.

Grant wanted his team's forgiveness, even if, as he said, he didn't think he deserved it. Romanoff couldn't really speak to that, because forgiveness was never something one deserved, or earned. It just happened. But it was something she knew she'd have to make sure Grant got clearly – trying to wipe the red from his ledger wasn't going to be about earning some sort of...repair to his relationship with his former team, his former friends. And not with Skye either.

Grant would hold onto that hope, but he couldn't use it as an expectation. Wiping the red from his ledger, earning some measure of redemption was about himself – being able to, look at himself in the mirror. It was about trying to balance the books on a the macro-scale, not with any one person or group. He had to be prepared to never get forgiveness.

Once, just once, Romanoff had come face to face with the family of one of her pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. victims after joining the agency. The man's widow had tried to kill her. And she'd cared not one bit for Romanoff being on 'the right side' now.

Natasha Romanoff hadn't _expected_ forgiveness then, or even thought it was likely, but a part of her had wanted some sort of...

Well, something other than the hate she'd gotten, however justified it was. But that experience had driven home to her what she'd already understood. As much as she doubted Grant wanted to hear it, it was a truth she'd have to make sure he understood.

 _Your victims are under no obligation to forgive you, no matter how much you do to make up for what you've done. Even if you do make up for what you've done._

It was something Barton had taught her in those early days after he made that different call.

All these thoughts went through Romanoff's head fairly quickly as she walked across the lounge.

Why she had no interest in talking to Skye, neither did she make any effort to avoid being noticed. She hadn't really expected what happened next:

The hacker had looked up, noticed her and Romanoff saw a look of recognition in the woman's eyes. Skye was in her feet and approaching Romanoff quickly.

"You're- you're Agent Romanoff," Skye said, her voice carrying a note of disbelief. "Oh my god, the Black Widow is on the base!" Romanoff resisted the urge to snap at the girl – and there was no other word for her, given the way she'd essentially squealed in delight as she'd said that - for using the nickname. Much like with May and 'The Cavalry', everyone used it. Romanoff wasn't as bothered by it as much as May was by the Cavalry, but she still didn't like the nickname.

After that momentary childishness, the girl managed to return to a more professional tone and demeanor; "Sorry. I just- I just didn't expect to see one of the Avengers here. I mean, Coulson told me about how you're all supposed to think he was dead – though clearly you don't or you wouldn't be here." Skye paused and looked at her, "Why are you here then, if it's alright for me to ask. And – I'm Skye."

Romanoff wasn't terribly surprised that the girl was a fan. She'd talked to Hill about Skye after watching the interrogation room videos and the newly minted Stark Industries executive had filled in a few blanks – including an abbreviated version of how Coulson and his shiny new team had met Skye while investigating an unregistered gifted who the hacker had gotten to first. The girl was apparently something of a fan of superheroes, which Romanoff, after the Battle of New York, technically qualified as. The girl, while she'd managed to get control of herself, was clearly a little star struck. Under any other circumstances, she might almost find it vaguely amusing. Most Agents had been too afraid of her to actually be 'star-struck' around her, back before the Fall. As it was, Romanoff was _not_ amused.

"I have some business with Coulson," she said flatly. "And I did already know your name."

"You know – Really?" From the girl's tone and expression, Romanoff could guess what was going through Skye's head: _Oh my god the Black Widow knows my name!_ Or something to that effect anyway.

"I do. I even saw some interesting footage of you recently. Do the words 'you should have run faster' sound familiar?" Romanoff didn't even have to make any special effort to make those words come out venomously; they'd done that all on her own. Romanoff understood that there was probably more to it than just _sheer hate –_ there usually was – but she also didn't care that much. She cared about Grant, and giving him a shot at a second chance. Skye didn't really matter in that equation, and certainly not her tender feelings.

Romanoff watched the agent's face fall for a moment, but soon enough she donned an expression that would not have been out of face on post-Bahrain May. Bland, emotionless, nonreactive.

"You're the reason the cameras went out in Ward's cell for a bit a few days ago."

Romanoff nodded. "And you're the one who told a man who had just tried to kill himself three times that he should have tried harder." Without another word, Romanoff continued past Skye and towards Coulson's office. She was done with the girl.

 **Lounge, the Playground**

 **October 4th, 2014**

Skye watched Agent Natasha Romanoff walk away towards Couson's office. Ward. She was here about Ward. _Everything_ had been about Ward the last several days. She couldn't get away from it. From him. First she'd gone into interrogate him. Then there'd been Coulson's request for his life story, and all the time that she'd spent digging through the dark corners of the internet to assemble what she could of that life story. And now the Black Widow was here, and it turned out she was the one who probably started her down that whole godawful forced death march down memory lane. Which wasn't giving her the warm and fuzzies towards Agent Romanoff.

And the woman had brought up something Skye wanted to think about even less than Ward himself. The whole damn thing had re-opened wounds, poured lemon juice on them, and then rubbed in some salt for good measure.

 _Ward didn't really want to die. It wasn't a genuine attempt. If he really wanted to die, he could have pulled it off._

That's what she'd been telling herself ever since those hateful words had spilled from her mouth unbidden in that cell. She'd been – so angry. Angry at Coulson, for sending her down there. Angry at Ward (even more) for refusing to share his intel with anyone else but her. And she'd hurt – for months she'd tried and failed, constantly, to not think about what Ward had done – to S.H.I.E.L.D., to Hand and Koenig and god knew who else, to the Team, to FitzSimmons... to her...

It still hurt. It still hurt that the guy, the 'Agent Grant Ward' she'd started to fall in love with had been a lie. Not just any lie – but a lie to cover up a murdering Nazi bastard traitor. And to make things worse, his 'feelings' had all been a lie. He hadn't felt anything for her. Skye refused to believe that he had. He'd just led her on, to make her trust him even more. But she couldn't trust him, shouldn't have trusted him, as it turned out. Because of what he was, what he'd done, what he (at that point) was going to do...

 _He didn't feel anything for me. He can't, he's evil._

And that -

That was the thing that had been the worst for her, all this time, the thing she'd agonized over for so long -

She refused to accept it, to accept that Ward felt anything for her. Because it made everything easier. Not easy – nothing had been easy since she'd found Koenig's body in that storage room.

She'd gone from the world making sense, a world in which her close knit family had grown closer than ever, and she was finally starting to get somewhere with a guy she'd fallen for – a great guy, in every measure to the-

The entire world had shattering around her. And it still _hurt._ And she wanted Ward to hurt. She wanted him to hurt – so that he would know that he couldn't manipulate her. She wanted him to know that holding out on giving his info just so he could see her and try to win her over to his side or to get her sympathy wasn't going to work. She wanted to never have to go down there to see him again so she could go back to trying – _desperately -_ to pretend that Ward didn't exist. Skye wanted to imagine that her S.O. had just died when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, rather than proving to be... everything that he really was.

She wanted to – feel something other than hurt and anger and emptiness as her baseline. Those three were the constants for her now.

She wanted to make Ward hurt so that she could hurt less. She wanted to make Ward hurt so he would leave her alone, and-

 _And_ , a little voice added, _if he really does have some sick, twisted, evil feelings for me, then he needs to know that I don't share them. That he doesn't matter to me._

 _That I don't love him anymore._

If only things were that simple.

 **Coulson's Office, The Playground**

 **October 4th, 2014**

Coulson was at his desk when Romanoff walked into his office unannounced.

"You can have him," Coulson said before Romanoff could go off on what was going to be an explosive rage. Explosive for her anyway.

"Grant is-" Romanoff started, beginning to raise her voice when she went silent, did a double take then: "I can?" _That's a rather rapid change. Did he actually look into Grant?_ When they'd last spoken about Ward, he'd been completely inflexible on the idea of Romanoff taking him, of giving him some kind of second chance.

"You were right. I usually do dig deeper, and this time I didn't,." Coulson replied. He placed his hand on the file Skye had assembled. "You found more than I did, but what I've found..." Coulson let out a sigh, "I'm not entirely sure I agree with you. But it raised questions I'd rather it hadn't, and things aren't as simple as they were before I read this." Coulson took in a breath and stood up, walking to the window and looking out of it. "And you were right a second time: we're not the people who should be holding him and making these sort of judgments. I don't know if you're the person for it either, but the options aren't exactly many and varied these days, are they?"

Romanoff nodded. "You can thank your hero Rogers for that." As much as she'd hated to, she had agreed with Rogers that bringing down S.H.I.E.L.D was the only way to stop Pierce that late in the game. But it didn't change the fact that destroying S.H.I.E.L.D. so completely, turning it into Public Enemy Number One had costs, costs that Romanoff knew only made the remnants of the Agency's job harder. It had made her _life_ harder just from having to be there for congressional hearings, let alone all the other problems that had come out of it.

So...she had mixed feelings on it. S.H.I.E.L.D. may have been completely corrupted by Hydra – and she wasn't sure she'd go that far – but it had been a good agency that had done a lot of good for the world. And...

Well, it had been the agency to give her a second chance. Yes, Clint had been the one to make that different call, but Coulson had backed him, and in the end, even Fury had conceded the point. Still, at the end of the day, Cap had had a point, and she'd supported him. It was spilled vodka.

"If he ever finds out I'm alive, I'm considering discussing the matter with him," Coulson said softly, turning away from the window and back to her. "But to the matter at hand: I don't know if you're right about Ward. I don't know if what you think you've found in his background really means what you think it means. But the possibility won't leave me alone. But I don't trust him, and I don't entirely believe that you're right about him. You might be, you might not." Coulson went silent.

Romanoff was about to reply, but from the look on Coulson's face, she guessed he had more to say. And she was proved right a minute later.

"So he's your problem now. Even at his best, Ward could never beat you in a fight. I may not be able to trust him, but I can trust you with custody of him. So you can have him." _He's a human being, not just some malfunctioning object you can hand off._ But that wasn't really what Coulson was saying. "But," he held up a hand, "there will be conditions."

Romanoff narrowed her eyes a little, but she wasn't surprised. The question was what conditions would Coulson set? That would tell her if the man really had gotten some perspective.

"The whole reason we kept him here on base was to get Hydra Intel from him. If I let you have him, I expect you to get the Intel from him instead." Coulson went back to his desk and sat down. Romanoff didn't accept his gesture to sit down across from him, standing in the office, hands clasped behind her back.

"Acceptable." She'd already planned on it.

"I want a tracking chip – top of the line, the best the agency had before the fall – in him. Not some anklet or bracelet he can thwart if he's determined enough, but something he'd have to cut into his own back to get out."

"He's not a dog you can just tag." Romanoff pointed out.

Coulson nodded, "No, he's not. But he is a very dangerous man who may or may not be worth saving. Even when Barton took you in and convinced the rest of us to give you a chance, you were monitored in a similar way for two years, even when we sent you out into the field." Romanoff hadn't liked it then, and wasn't fond of it now – but...

"As long as it is just for tracking him."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have a kill-switch implant." Coulson replied, as if saying something he'd said many times. "And I wouldn't use one even if we did. There are lines."

"I suppose there are. You never did torture Grant." Romanoff admitted.

"No. I didn't," Coulson looked at his desk, "although the idea got very appealing at times. But I suppose I wouldn't be human if I didn't sometimes prefer a more visceral punishment for people. But I never gave the order, and I never let May do it to him either." He looked back at her, "third condition: I want regular updates on his progress."

"Fine." Romanoff paused. "There's a condition coming that you know I won't like. Spit it out."

"Two of them actually," Coulson answered. "The first one – wherever you decide to set up shop with him, I want him confined to a two mile radius from there."

"So you want to take him out of one cage and stick him in a bigger one? This is about more than getting Grant out of that hole you've stuck him into. This is about wiping the red from his ledger." She used the term a lot – she was really the only one she knew who did. But she used it because it was more accurate, to her mind, than 'seeking redemption' or 'forgiveness' or even really 'a second chance'. Those dressed up what it was, made it sound prettier, fancier, nicer. It wasn't nice and simple and it definitely wasn't pretty.

"A two mile radius is hardly a cage, Agent Romanoff," Coulson countered tersely. "But yes. You can trust him, but I can't. Not yet. And if he really isn't worthy of the trust you're giving him, then him free and out of his cage? That's something that could come back to bite us all." Romanoff watched the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. as he was silent for another moment. "As much as I'm glad Skye doesn't believe it, I think Ward's feelings for Skye are genuine. And I'm not remotely interested in letting him loose to come 'after her', if it turns out you're wrong."

 _Grant isn't going to hurt her, you idiot._ But Coulson was giving her what she wanted – sort of. And Grant didn't _need_ to be able to range freely around the world initially. What he needed most of all was to get out of that cell and away from this base, away from his former team. Away from Skye especially, before that girl could say more things along the line of what she already had and push Grant off of the edge he was precariously perched on.

"And your other condition that you know I'm going to hate?"

"After you'd had him for a month, and assuming you still believe in him by that point I want to have a meeting, face to face. Just him and me, I don't want you there looking over our shoulders. You can pick the ground – he can even – and I'll come alone. You can even be there at the start of the meeting to make sure. But if you're right, and Ward really deserves a shot at a second chance, I want to be able to see if you're right."

"The last thing Grant is going to need is more time around you and the rest of your team." Romanoff replied. She took a breath, "Not at that point, anyway." All things said and done, she was fairly fond of Coulson. But Coulson had people. At this moment in time, Grant had no one. And she'd been through everything Grant had. She was quite possibly the only person who could really understand what Grant had been through. She was certainly the only person who was in a position to do anything about it. She could do for him what Clint had done for her.

 _Of course, I also got S.H.I.E.L.D. mandated psychiatrist appointments._ She'd hated them. A lot. Fortunately, Grant wouldn't have to go through those. There really wasn't a psychiatrist in the world they could take him to.

"I'm not budging on these two conditions, Natasha." Coulson replied. "After I've seen him again, after that month, then I'll know if I'm making the right call here or not. "

"I can and will break him out. I'm not leaving this base without him, Phil." Two could play at the first name game.

"I didn't think you were. But you also aren't going to do the more difficult thing just because. I can't trust him – but as good as you are, you aren't perfect. If you're going to sign on with the agency again, you aren't going to be able to be with Ward 24/7."

 _Not that Grant would want that even remotely._ Grant liked his solitude – not constant solitude like he'd just about had in that hole they'd stuffed him into, but he did like being alone. Being around people – Grant needed that. But she had no interest in just tossing him off the deep end. She was sure therapists worldwide would critique the way she was planning on helping Grant.

Romanoff didn't care. She was going to help Grant the way she knew how.

"Five mile radius." Romanoff said after a moment. She didn't want to have to break him out if she didn't have to. And -

She could understand Coulson's concerns. Sort of. She'd had the same treatment in the early days, and she hadn't actually betrayed anyone. Trusting her had probably been _easier_ for Coulson than trusting Grant was.

"Five miles," Coulson agreed.

"I came in here expecting to have to bully you into agreeing to let me leave with Grant," Romanoff admitted with a slight hint of humor in her voice – in some ways, this whole thing was entirely absurd.

"Why do you think I just opened with 'you can have him'?" Coulson replied, smirking a little, though only for a moment. He stood up. "I've got a doctor in the infirmary ready to put the tracker in Ward. I suppose the doctor just needs a patient."

 **Vault D, The Playground**

 **October 4th, 1999**

Ward looked up as he heard the door to his cell open. He knew it wasn't someone with a meal. Irregularly scheduled or not, he'd been given food two hours ago. He didn't get meals that close together.

His hopes that it was Skye were dashed when he saw Coulson – but then...

Natasha was back.

It felt...strange to call her by that name. Always had, even though she'd eventually insisted on it, by the end. Even more so now, now that she knew what he was. And yet – she'd insisted once more that he use her given name.

He hadn't expected her to come back. But here she was.

Ward stood up from the bed and approached the laser grid. He had no idea what it was that they wanted. Natasha couldn't still believe he deserved a second chance. Ward knew he didn't. He didn't deserve anything but this cell for the rest of his natural life.

Oh but how he _wanted_ that second chance. That chance to wipe the red from his ledger, to use Natasha's terminology. But he'd done too much. There was just no forgiving what he'd done.

"Grant." Natasha stood in front of the laser grid. They were maybe a foot apart now.

"Natasha," Ward said after a moment. "Why are you-?"

"You're being let out," Natasha replied.

"You're being released into Agent Romanoff's custody. What she does with you is her affair, within certain conditions," Coulson said from behind Natasha, who turned her head enough to shoot him a glare. Ward swallowed and looked at Natasha.

"You can't. This is where I need to be." Grant said softly.

"No, this is the last place you need to be." Natasha replied. "Even if you really are irredeemable, this isn't the place they should be keeping you. But I know you, Grant. And after our last discussion – I'm going to make a different call." Natasha grabbed the tablet and dropped the laser grid. Coulson shot her a look, but didn't make any move to try and grab the tablet from her, to call in back-up to stop him from escaping.

Not that Ward was interested in escaping. He just stood there. "Natasha... this..." He should have kept better composure when she'd shown up before...

"Grant, you're not staying here. That's non-negotiable. If I have to knock you out and carry you out of here myself, I will." That sounded like the agent he'd worked with for a year and a half. "No, you don't really deserve a second chance. No one does. No one 'deserves' anything like that. But I'm giving you that chance. Do you really _want_ to be down here?" Natasha shook her head, "No, you don't."

Ward knew what he wanted. He wanted Skye to look at him with something other than hate and disgust and pain and rage in her eyes. He wanted Skye to – look at him like she had before. Even before they'd both realized there was something there. He'd settle for the look in her eyes in the early days, when she was just his rookie, when he was just her S.O. He'd settle for anything other than the look she'd given him before.

But if he took this – Coulson was letting him out, putting him into 'Natasha's custody'...

Would he ever see Skye again? Somehow, he doubted Coulson would let him see Skye. Ever.

 _I have to. I need – I need to tell her about her father. I need to-_

But if he took Natasha's offer -

Ward – he didn't want much. Well, no, he wanted – he wanted to change the past. He wanted to do everything. He wanted the happy life with Skye he'd never allowed himself to imagine. He wanted his friendship with Fitz and Simmons to be like they'd been before. He wanted to have had the strength to break free from John -

He wanted to do it all over again.

But he couldn't.

Throat tight, not really sure he could trust himself to say anything, Ward stepped across the line that had marked the laser-grid. He stepped out of his cell.


	5. Remanded Into Her Custody

**Disclaimer:** I don't own AoS. I think we all know AoS wouldn't have done what it did in S2 if I owned the show and if you don't know, I invite you to look at my tumblr – it'll become clear sooner or later :P I also don't own The MCU, the Avengers or anything to do with the character of Natasha Romanoff – If I did, we'd have Romanoff Merch, we'd have a Black Widow Movie, and well, if I owned the MCU, I'd find a way to talk Robert Downey Jr. into doing an Ironman 4. Somehow. :p Or maybe a WarMachine Movie with Tony Stark as a supporting character (actually, that's a good idea. Can we have that please, Marvel?)

 **Note 1:** After this chapter, Skye will drop out of the narrative for a while. On the plus side, for fans of Clint Barton/Hawkeye, at least, he should be showing up in chapter 6. As with Romanoff, I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to get him right, so feel free to correct me (politely) if you think I do him wrong.

 **Note 2:** Skye is, as this chapter shows, in a dark place. But this is not a Skye-bash, and I am not _here_ for a Skyebash. If you think my writing is bashing her, then either you misread something, or I've failed to communicate her state of mind properly. If you feel like I am bashing her (or otherwise casting her as some terrible person for the way she's thinking on Ward), please tell me. I'm more than willing to explain my meaning, and if I am in fact failing to communicate her state of mind properly, I need to know so I can correct it.

Thanks to colormeblue/Riley Holden for beta-reading.

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 5: Remanded Into Her Custody

 **The Playground**

 **October 4th, 2014**

Skye hadn't been sure what to expect when she saw Romanoff leave Coulson's office – complete with AC in tow – and then watched them go down into Vault D. Her attempt to watch them through the Vault's cameras was futile, however – Coulson must have shut them down again.

 _Why ?_ What was so important? What was the business between The Black Widow and Ward that was so important and super-secret that she wasn't allowed to know? She needed to know what was going on with Ward – she needed to stay inside his head so she could interrogate him. The very idea... she didn't _want_ to think about him, didn't _want_ to be in his head, but it was what Coulson needed, what the team needed, what S.H.I.E.L.D. needed, so she would do it.

Romanoff clearly had issues with the way she'd spoken to Ward and Skye had spent the last ten minutes stewing over the red-haired woman's words. She knew why she'd said them. She refused to believe that Ward had been suicidal. To believe otherwise would be to accept that the monster was human, and he wasn't. He was a murderer, a serial killer and a liar. He really had been a robot, for all important intents and purposes. A soulless killing machine.

He couldn't be killing himself because he felt despair at what he'd done. It wouldn't be because being kept in a light-less cell in total isolation was as destructive to him as it would be to a real person. Because Ward wasn't a real person. He wasn't allowed to be.

Skye needed him to be a monster.

Her breath had caught in her throat and she'd nearly forgotten to resume breathing when she saw Ward, AC and Romanoff come out of the cell. Coulson was in the front, Ward behind him – _why the hell would AC leave his back turned to_ _ **Ward**_ _? -_ and sure, the sick bastard was in handcuffs: those heavier, more solid ones that were supposed to be a lot harder to slip out of – but...

 _What the hell is he doing out of his cell!?_

She followed them through the playground's security cameras – she'd made it so she could access them from her tablet months ago – and watched the three make their way into the infirmary. But as soon as she switched her view to the infirmary cameras, those were suddenly cut.

It wasn't like AC to keep her in the dark. Not so obviously, anyway. She knew he didn't tell her everything – he had the entire agency to run. She didn't _need_ to know everything. She still wanted to know everything, but she understood now just _why_ S.H.I.E.L.D. had hidden information so much, both from the outside world and even from within – Hydra hadn't invented information compartmentalization. They'd just used it to their advantage.

But if it had to do with Ward – she _needed_ to know it. It was Ward. She _deserved_ to be kept in the loop about everything that sick son of a bitch did. After what he'd done to her, after how he'd tricked her into falling in love with him-

 _You tricked yourself, Skye._ Skye ignored that little voice. It didn't really matter – because Ward was her problem, and if it involved him, she deserved to know.

It was just that simple.

She needed to be reminded every day just what he was, just how evil he was. Because every once in a while, her traitorous fucking brain, would give her dreams. Nice happy dreams where Ward wasn't a monster. Where they'd had that drink and then had a happy relationship and were still having a happy relationship. Where-

And Skye couldn't afford to even imagine that in a dream, let alone actually have it happen in a dream. Because Ward was Evil. Evil.

Skye stood, making her way to the infirmary. She was about to barge in through the closed doors when Coulson stepped outside. He looked up and then saw her. Surprise was on his face for only a moment, quickly replaced by resignation.

"Skye. There's a reason I cut the camera feeds." _So it was about me._

"And why the hell is that?" Skye demanded. "Ward's my responsibility – what the hell is so important that I'm not allowed to know it? And what does the Black Widow have to do with anything?" She saw Coulson suppress a bit of a sigh as she used the title 'Black Widow'.

"Ward _was_ your responsibility. He's not going to be anymore. I'm remanding him to Agent Romanoff's custody." Skye blinked. _Wait, what?_

"You can't – Ward said he'd only give the intel to _me_. You can't just hand him over to someone else!"

"I can and I have," Coulson replied. "I was never happy about sending you down there, and I wasn't happy about having you make that file about his past. But I did what needed to be done. There's another option now. The last thing you need, the last thing _any_ of us needs is to be thinking about Ward. Or interacting with him. He was here because this was the best place for him. Agent Romanoff's custody is the best place for him now." Coulson spread his hands a little. "I trust her ability to get the information out of him."

"I _need_ Ward here in Vault D because then I'll actually know where the bastard is – behind a laser barrier he can't get through!" Skye replied. Coulson couldn't just do this.

"Ward, even at his best, was never able to beat Romanoff. Believe me, I've got the sparring records to prove it. That fact hasn't changed. And he's being fitted with a tracker – if it really matters where he is, I'll let you know when you ask. But he's not your problem anymore. You don't need to keep thinking about him and what he did to you."

"Why? Why the hell are you handing him over to Romanoff?" Yes, Skye usually didn't curse this much in one short span, mentally or otherwise. But she was so – Skye closed her eyes a moment and forced herself to take a breath.

"Because she can handle him. And because she has a history with him as well," Coulson answered after a moment.

"A history?" What exactly did that mean? Skye could make guesses but that's all they were and – Ward had never told her he'd even _known_ Black Widow. Idly, a tiny part of her wondered why she never actually asked, back on the Bus, if Ward had known or even met Hawkeye or Black Widow. They'd all been agents, technically, and it wasn't an impossible thought. But she'd just never asked.

"A history," Coulson confirmed, and Skye could tell he was deliberately not explaining what exactly he meant. "The decision's been made, Skye. Ward isn't your problem anymore."

 _The hell he isn't!_ Ward was always going to be a problem – always going to be a damn problem until she could finally put him out of her mind and the only way that was going to happen was when the bastard was dead, after he'd given them every bit of intel he had on Hydra.

 _If you want him dead that badly, then why did you-_

Skye shut that line of thought down immediately. She'd analyzed that moment on the plane too much – she knew she'd made a mistake then. She'd been weak and pathetic. She should have let Mike kill him then but she hadn't. She had to live with those consequences.

But living with those consequences meant she had to be the one to deal with Ward.

Skye clenched her hands into fists. "Fine."

A part of her wondered why she was so upset – she hadn't wanted to go see Ward. She _didn't_ want to have anything to do with him...

But she was. Because she didn't want Ward gone from Vault D. She needed to be able to know _exactly_ where he was. Needed to be able to face him and remind herself what he was. And now... and now Coulson was taking it from her out of some misguided needed to help her.

"You do have other responsibilities," Coulson said lightly. "Any progress on Garrett's writing?"

"Still no." Skye debated asking about his source for the additional ones but she'd done that before – and she'd probably do it again – to no avail. And right now she wasn't in the mood for AC being all mysterious, even if he actually had a good reason.

"Keep on it," Coulson replied. "And keep monitoring Hydra channels. Right now, we have a tap into their communications – sooner or later, they're going to realize we have it, but in the meantime, let's make the most of it."

Skye nodded. AC was right about that. "I'll keep you posted."

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 4th, 2014**

Grant had been silent the entire time between getting the implanted tracker and their arrival here. The safe-house was a small country cottage in the mountains and she'd landed her quinjet – a 'gift' from one of the Hydra bases she'd taken out alongside Rogers and Clint a month after the Triskellion. Complete with cloaking, it made moving around much easier. Couldn't exactly use it in most residential areas – cloaked or not, it did make some noise – but it was useful. And armed. Always good to have a plane fully equipped when you were technically a terrorist.

 _Not that I think the US government is very likely to arrest me_ _just for being S.H.I.E.L.D._

She'd attended those congressional hearings before finally walking out, and it had only solidified her position in the eyes of the public. It had been... very counter to what she was used to, to be so public, but she'd gotten that after the Battle of New York to a degree. And even if her face was known, Romanoff – well, she _was_ a spy. A known face couldn't really do much to stop her.

Grant walked into the small four room structure – they were both standing in a combined kitchen/dining room. Romanoff walked right behind him. Here would do for now – Grant was out of the cell, which was what mattered the most, and it was a secure location.

"Sit." She gestured to the small table, with four chairs arrayed around it. Grant obeyed without question. Romanoff pulled out one of the other chairs and sat down. "Let me clear, Grant. This isn't going to be easy. And I have to repeat this; this isn't about your former team forgiving you. If Coulson never forgives you, he never forgives you. If the science twins don't, they don't." She'd read up on Grant's team, as much as she could, and quizzed Hill about them. "The same holds for May... and for Skye." She saw the slightest flinch at the mention of her name. Grant had kept himself in shape in his cell, more than she'd actually expected, but the same couldn't be said for his ability to hide what he was thinking. He used to be more unreadable than this.

 _But then, maybe it's just because it's Skye._

"They don't have to forgive you. You betrayed them. Lied to them. Nearly killed a few of them," Romanoff continued. Before she could say anything else, Grant muttered something. She couldn't make it out, so she looked at him, eyebrow raised.

"It was supposed to float," he said softly.

"Hm?" Romanoff arched an eyebrow carefully.

"The medpod. It was supposed to float. That's why I dropped it. To get them out of the plane, away from John... keep them alive." Grant looked away from her. "And it didn't. I don't even know... I know Fitz is still alive, but the rest of it... Coulson never told me what happened-"

"I can find out," Romanoff told him carefully. "But whatever your intent behind dropping that medpod, FitzSimmons nearly died. I don't know if it would help or not if they knew, and that's not the point, Grant. Because, like I said, they have every right to never forgive you. Even if you save their lives a hundred times, even if you spend the rest of your life trying." She managed a small laugh. "Even if you help save New York from an alien invasion."

Grant looked back at her. "If you don't think I can ever be forgiven, then what's the point? Why am I here, Natasha? I belong in that cell."

" _No,."_ Romanoff told him firmly. "No matter what you've done, no matter what you do, you don't belong in _that_ cell. Not a cell owned and operated by the people you hurt the most with your actions. Not a light-less little hole that isn't even a proper prison cell." She leaned in a little. "And I didn't say you couldn't ever be forgiven. I said that the people you hurt might never forgive you, and they have every right not to. And I told you the first time, this isn't about forgiveness. This is about wiping out the red in your ledger." She had a feeling that Grant was going to get sick of hearing that before this was done, if she had to keep reminding him of the point.

"If you think you belong in that cell, then why did you leave?" She asked him, settling back in her chair.

"You said you'd knock me out and carry me out yourself if you had to." Grant pointed out. "You keep your threats, and I prefer to remain conscious and aware of the world around me." He bit his lip, and Romanoff wondered at the surprising loquaciousness of the man. By the standards she was used to, this was _very_ talkative. He talked a lot when it was business, when the job required it, for mission planning, but this was not a mission.

"And that was the only reason?" Her eyebrow was arched again. Grant shook his head, shrinking back into himself a little. "Skye? Do you think she's going to-"

"I just..." Grant said softly, "I just want her to be able to look at me with something other than hate and disgust. Even that much is too much to ask..."

"Too much to ask of her, maybe. Not in general. But I'm pretty sure that the ship has sailed with her – She told you that you should have tried harder to kill yourself." She shook her head. "Pinning your hope on her-"

"If I can't pin hopes on her, I have nothing _to_ pin my hopes on," Grant interrupted. "She's..." He closed his eyes and looked away. "I know it's more than I'll ever deserve. But it doesn't mean I don't... it doesn't mean I don't want it. Just that I know that I can't have it."

Romanoff nodded. "As long as you understand that, we might make some progress." Grant shouldn't be pinning his hope on her. Skye shouldn't be his hope – it was pretty clear that her hatred and disgust ran right to her core now.

Her reason for taking Clint's offer when he'd made his different call had been less... poetic. Even when she'd worked for the Red Room, she'd hated it. At the time, she'd seen little issue with the things she did for them but she didn't like them, the way they punished failure, all the things they'd done to her. Didn't like them and desperately wanted to please them all at the same time. She couldn't just leave them, couldn't just abandon the Room... but...

And she suspected Grant had had some of the same issues if he'd dropped that pod to save his friends lives. A victim's relationship with their brainwasher was always going to be complicated.

Her choices with Clint really had been take his offer or die. And killing for S.H.I.E.L.D., for the Red Room? At the time, the difference hadn't seemed all that important. She'd had plenty of time since to... have perspective. To understand just what making up for what she'd done meant.

"I told you it won't be easy. I'm not going to say living with what you did will get easier. It might even be harder. But you were brainwashed, Grant. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can move on to the next part."

Romanoff stood up. She was getting sick of seeing that beard on his face. It was so very... disconcerting. Not like Grant at all. And she didn't think he was going to be ready to really take the first step just yet.

"But in the meantime, follow me." He stood up without any further prompting, and she walked him to the bathroom door. "There's a razor and shaving cream in there. Get that _thing_ ," she gestured to his beard, "off your face. Unless your opinion on having facial hair has changed since I knew you."

"It... it hasn't," Grant confirmed. "But... you're going to trust me with a razor?"

"Are you going to try to kill yourself again?" Grant shook his head. "Then I don't see the issue. Besides, I'm going to watch you to make sure you don't. But that beard needs to go." She imagined he could probably pull off a bit of stubble, but that beard – it just didn't work. And as she'd known, he really didn't want it.

She could understand why Coulson had denied him anything to shave himself with, while he was in that cell. But he was out of it now.

Grant nodded and walked inside, opened the medicine cabinet to take out the razor and set to work. Getting rid of all that facial hair wasn't a quick one and done thing, but Romanoff watched. She didn't really think she needed to, but she wasn't going to take the chance. Not when he'd been so desperate to die, at one point, that he'd just thrown himself at the walls. Finally though, Grant was done.

"Better?" Grant didn't say anything, but after a long moment, he nodded. "Good." She gestured to the other bedroom. "There are clothes in there. Since Skye went and deleted all the S.H.I.E.L.D. files on you, I couldn't just look up your clothing size." S.H.I.E.L.D. files had _everything_ on a person. Clothing sizes were just the beginning. Romanoff had done what she could to wipe her own files from the internet as well, but she had to admit that Skye's job on wiping Grant and the rest of the team had been very well done. "But they should fit. I'll be in the kitchen when you're done."

There was nothing sharp in his room for him to use, just in case. If he was inventive enough, she was sure he could do something, but she also knew how long it should take him to just get dressed.

Fortunately for everyone involved, she didn't have to go check on him. Romanoff was leaning back against the counter a little, her hands resting on the edge. Grant came back in.

"Good. Now, since you're going to be staying here for a while, you can earn your keep. We both know you're the better cook." She gestured to the cabinets and the refrigerator. "So cook some dinner. I'm sure you're sick of the food they fed you in that cell."

Grant blinked. "I'm the _better_ cook? Natasha, that would imply that you _can_ cook. About all you can do is make a sandwich or microwave something." Well, as far as Grant knew, he was right. She'd been taught how to cook by the Red Room like she'd learned so many other skills – an assassin needs to be able to blend into nearly any circumstance, and you never known when the opportunity to just poison your target's meal might come up.

But Romanoff also _hated_ cooking. Back when she and Grant had been partners, he'd never assumed that, as the woman, she'd be the one to cook if they were both at the same safe-house or something. He'd had more self-preservation to even think that, and really, Grant wasn't that sort of guy. He _had_ assumed they'd take turns, if they were somewhere for an extended period of time, such as for surveillance or longer jobs. Which was a reasonable assumption... but again, she really hated cooking. So she'd 'proven' that she couldn't cook anything worth a damn and fobbed the job off on him.

"Well, I did feel the need to add just _how_ much of a better cook than you were." In some things, he was better. And at the very least, he was willing and able.

Grant looked at the cupboards and the refrigerator, then stood still. For a second, Romanoff wondered if she'd made a mistake. She knew Grant liked to keep busy which was the reason she'd told him to cook. But he had just gotten out of a prison cell. A particularly terrible one at that. But the concern ended after a second when Grant opened one of the cupboards and saw three boxes of the same breakfast cereal, then looked back at her. "Lucky Charms?"

She could get the question, and the tone of almost 'really' that he managed to have. She'd been staying at Clint's house one morning and the kids had insisted she have some – and as it turned out, she'd liked them more than she'd expected. Sure, Lucky Charms were basically sugar in a bowl with milk added, but they tasted good.

Romanoff shrugged. "What can I say? They're magically delicious." She suppressed a small laugh.


	6. I'll Let You Know When I Get There

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or The Avengers 1 or 2 or Iron Man 2 or Captain America: the Winter Soldier or the upcoming Captain America: Civil War.

 **Note:** As I said before, Skye won't be onscreen for a while, and neither will Coulson, though Coulson will show up sooner. While I debated cutting away to them from time to time, the fact of the matter is that the broad strokes of what happened on the show will happen in more or less the same way that they did, minus Ward's presence, and so there isn't as much point. Plus, the tight focus of the story is on Ward's process of redemption. We will return to Skye, and the Skyeward _will_ happen, I promise.

Skye will, however, remain a constant presence in the narrative.

 **Note 2:** Clint Barton has his first appearance in this chapter. If you think I have his personality or points of canon about him wrong, please inform me. I am aware that comics Barton and MCU Barton are very different people, apparently. I'm going to be using the Clint Barton of the MCU however, and so please only correct me about his MCU personality/canon.

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 6: I'll Let You Know When I Get There

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 5th, 2014**

Ward's sleep had been... well, not unusual.

Ward hadn't had anything resembling a true good night's sleep in months, maybe even longer. Every night in that cell, his sleep was filled with dreams and nightmares. Or dreams that turned into nightmares.

In his dreams, he was...

Well, he was happy.

Sometimes he was just back with the team, in the early days when he was just Skye's S.O., when things were simple. But in his dreams, he wasn't there to spy on them for John. He wasn't there to find out anything about Coulson's resurrection. He was just there as a member of the team. A loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

Sometimes, he dreamed he hadn't turned on the team, that he'd stayed with them. That he'd not let Garrett go. That he and Skye...

That they'd let their feelings become something. That they were together, and happy. He dreamed of the future he could have had with her – never mind that he'd never have been able to have it... Sooner or later John would have put a stop to it, even if Hydra hadn't come out of the shadows.

 _But if I'd refused to turn on the team. If I'd let him go to that cell in the Icebox..._

Ward had never dreamed of forgiveness. Of being let out of that cell. Of becoming a member of the team again. Of Skye ever looking at him with anything but hate and disgust. No matter how much he'd wanted that – and how he _wanted_ it – he couldn't have it. And he knew that. He could never be friends with Fitz or Simmons again. He could never have a working partnership with May. He could never have Coulson's trust again. And he could never have Skye's trust. Or anything else from her but hate.

He deserved it. He deserved their hate, their rage, their disgust.

Every night he dreamed, he resented John a little bit more. Hated him a little bit more. He'd given the man so much, given him everything. He'd thrown all morality aside because John needed him. Needed his help. Because John was the only man who cared about him. The only man who _could_ care about him.

So much for that.

But it wasn't John's fault. Natasha was wrong. He hadn't been brainwashed. He'd made his choices. His failures, moral and otherwise... they were his own.

Last night had been dreams. Other nights... other nights were the nightmares.

Ward didn't want to think about the nightmares. Of Skye dying in his arms because he'd shot her at John's order. Of simply shooting Fitz and Simmons. Or any of the rest of the things his nightmares showed him.

Ward's internal clock hadn't failed him. Awake at 5:30. A small part of him, the ever vigilant specialist, was satisfied to learn that he really had been waking up at 5:30 in the morning every day in that cell. That he'd kept up his routine.

As much on instinct as anything else, he started his post-wake up exercises, push ups and everything else. It was... a half-hour span when he could afford to shut down his mind, to stop thinking about what he'd done. When he could just focus on a familiar routine. One he didn't have to think about at all.

He hadn't been surprised to find that Natasha was already in the kitchen when he left his bedroom, drinking a cup of coffee. He was a little surprised when she pushed a steaming hot mug of the drink into his hands as well.

"You don't usually make coffee for me in the mornings." Ward said softly, the whole thing more than a little disconcerting. It just wasn't what he was used to.

"I didn't make it for you. I just poured the rest of the pot in a mug for you." Natasha replied, taking another sip. "I see you've kept up the habit of waking up at 5:30 every morning." It wasn't a question. "Even in the cell with no clock you managed it."

"I told you before, I've got a pretty good internal clock." Ward replied. And he had. Natasha was a fairly early riser herself most days, but there were times when she would sleep late, or at least not get out of bed until later. Ward well...

Staying in bed after he was awake was never something he was comfortable with and, unless he was sick, he never slept past five thirty. Usually not even then.

"Do you have Garrett to thank for that?" Natasha's tone was pointed, direct and unflinching.

If she'd asked him that a month ago, two months, he wouldn't have been ready to give that answer. He still...

He still didn't want to talk about John. What John put him through. He hadn't even meant to when she'd come down to his cell the first time. It was only when she revealed that she knew things that no one should know that he'd said anything and that was as much out of shock as anything else that he told her.

The thing was, as much as he resented John, for everything, he couldn't really, truly, completely hate the man. He had made his own choices, after all, and...

John had used him, had only helped him for his own benefit, but...

 _He still did help me. He still did help 'make me a man'._ He couldn't hate John. Not completely. He did owe John so much – John had gotten him out of Juvenile Hall. John had saved him from his family. _John may have used me, but at least he built me into **something** when he did it._

"Yes." Ward replied, hoping she'd be happy with just that, but suspecting that she wouldn't be.

"The Red Room taught us to wake early through our... education." Ward wasn't sure exactly what she meant by that, but he could guess. He didn't know the intimate details of the Red Room, but he knew some small things. He'd heard stories. Rumors. Urban legends, perhaps. Natasha hadn't told him much about her training though she'd occasionally shared the details of her 'missions' before she'd met Barton. "What did to Garrett do to you to train you so well?"

Ward took a step back, taking a sip from his coffee, stalling. He didn't want to talk about the woods. He didn't want to share those details with anyone. He didn't want to think about John beating him if he wasn't awake at the right time – if he wasn't awake when John got there. Waking up every morning at 5:30 had been a survival mechanism, like everything else he'd learned in those woods. John had exposed him to a danger, a threat – of his own design – and forced him to learn to counter it. And it _had_ worked. And Ward had a record of successful missions behind him.

 _But I failed the most important mission, didn't I? John's dead._ But he had gotten John what he'd needed. Gotten him the G.H. 325.

 _For all the good it did him in the end._

Ward moved to the table, leaning against it, still holding his coffee. He sipped again, still stalling.

"You're stalling, Grant." Natasha stated the obvious. "If you don't want to tell me right now, say so. You're going to have to tell me about those five years one way or the other. But I could lay out the mats and I could... express my feelings about your little 'eye candy' comment." Ward winced mentally at the slightly vicious note in Natasha's voice.

He'd said it to see if he could get Hill off her game. He hadn't expected it to work but it was worth the effort, which was negligible. And, as he'd expected, it hadn't worked. _I really should have thought through Natasha's reaction._ Well, Ward hadn't thought a lot of things through right after Hydra came out of the shadows.

If he and Natasha went onto the mats, she'd beat him. Under the right circumstances, Ward suspected he could probably beat her. But those circumstances required him to be some distance away with a high quality sniper-rifle and near total surprise. The first two weren't too hard to get but even from a thousand yards away, surprising Agent Natasha "The Black Widow" Romanoff was much easier said than done.

In a hand to hand fight – Ward could put up a good showing, and he supposed if Natasha had a couple broken ribs, hadn't slept for forty-eight hours and had just fought off a half-dozen people nearly as good as he was, he might have a chance against her. Maybe if she had a broken arm or leg, rather than broken ribs. But otherwise... not really.

But it was a better option than talking about the woods with her. And it would be... well, it wouldn't be mindless. Shutting your brain off in the middle of a fight could be fatal. But a fight with her, even one he was guaranteed to lose, would take up so much of his mind that he couldn't think of anything else. Like all the things he didn't want to think about. Like all the people he didn't want to think about.

Ward took another sip of his coffee and set the mug down on the table. "I think I'll take the mats." Then Ward paused, and looked over at her, eyes directly on her face. "Well... just how upset are you about the comment?"

"Remember the time we sparred after the mission in Helsinki?" Ward flinched visibly this time. Well, he deliberately flinched visibly. He didn't want Natasha to think he'd forgotten about that particular incident. "I was thinking something along those lines."

"I think I'll take the mats." Now if she'd mentioned that time after Cairo... talking about the woods might actually have been more pleasant.

"What would you have said if I set the time after Cairo as the standard?" Ward blinked. "It'll be Helsinki either way, whatever your answer. If you're not ready to talk about it, you don't have to. Yet."

"I think I would have taken talking." Ward admitted after a moment. He took another sip from his coffee. "But as you say, you said Helsinki." _I probably deserve that much from her for that comment._

"Then I'll lay out the mats. You should eat something first. And well..." She set her own coffee mug down, though since she was by the counter, that's where she put it. "You're going to have to start telling me everything you have on Hydra." She took a step towards him. "What you know on Hydra isn't that important to me. What's important to me is giving you the same second chance I got. But I made the deal with Coulson."

 _Its not like this is that much of a surprise._ "I don't know as much as Coulson probably thinks I do. John's gone, and his section of Hydra with it. Most of what I know now is rumors, supposition and gossip. A few useful bits of information." _And a phone that can contact **someone** high ranking in Hydra's North American branch. _ He didn't know who, but he did know it would someone be connected at the highest level. Not all the way to the top, but close. _Strucker wouldn't be in the States, I know that. So who's running things here?_ He could think of a few, but he didn't know who. "Some names, accounts, drop boxes. But a lot of them will be obsolete now, with John gone."

"What you know is what you know." Natasha replied. She raised an eyebrow. "I'm grasping that you care about Skye." _Yes, yes, Natasha, I know that love is for children._ "Did you hold out on telling Coulson anything just because you wanted to see her?"

Ward wouldn't deny that that was part of it. Initially, his remaining threads of loyalty to John were part of it. Once Coulson made that early blunder, telling him no information would ever get him out – not that he'd expected it to, but still, a _terrible_ interrogation tactic to tell him that. A small part of him had just wanted to spite Coulson, out of professional distaste. Very small.

But it wasn't just seeing Skye. He knew things. About her father. Things about her past that she needed to know. If Raina was right, and there really was a darkness inside her, something she'd inherited from 'monstrous' parents, then she needed to know. Skye needed to know so that she could fight it. Resist it.

For a brief time, after hearing what Raina had to tell him, Ward _had_ entertained the idea that if Skye really did have darkness inside her, then they could be together. That she could love him. But... he didn't want Skye to be like that. He didn't want Skye to be dark.

Skye was _good._ She was a bright light in a dim world, color on a canvas of gray. Poetic maybe, but true. He didn't want to see Skye become like him. If she did... Ward would still love her. He couldn't not. But...

"I told him I'd tell Skye because I know something. Something about her father." Ward said after a moment. "She's been searching for her family, for years." He wasn't going to tell Natasha what Raina had told him. It was for Skye to hear. "I thought... I thought if I gave her the intel I had, I could... eventually have her trust me enough to believe what I told her about her father."

Natasha, who had dropped her eyebrow, raised it again. "Why not just give that information to Coulson? He'd give it to her, no?"

Ward shook his head. "I doubt it. He sees her as the daughter he never had. He wouldn't want her to have anything to do with her father." And he wouldn't want Skye to go looking for her father. Not if he slaughtered a village to find her.

 _Skye has the right to make that decision herself. Not have it made for her._

"You're saying Coulson wouldn't want the competition for her paternal affections?" Natasha didn't sound like she believed it. "If he really cared about her-"

"He'd be doing it _because_ he cares about her. But he's not going to tell her. You didn't spend six months on that plane with him, and more months hearing him ranting and raving. He's not the guy you knew before his death." W _ell, the last year_ _has changed us all_.

"He proved he was close enough when he dug into your past himself and let me get you out of that hole." Natasha replied, still unconvinced. "We're going to the mats, and then when we're done, you're going to start writing down _everything_ you know about Hydra." She didn't sound like she was going to brook any argument.

She stepped back and lowered her voice a little, her tone less steely. "If you want to make up for what you've done, Grant, you need to start somewhere. Just like I had to."

 _No matter where I start, I can't undo what I did._

"How long did it take for you, then?" Ward asked softly. "To make up for what you did before you joined S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I'll let you know when I get there." Natasha replied.

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 5th, 2014**

Had Grant been anyone else, Romanoff might have offered to get him an icepack. She'd hadn't broken any of his bones, or even hurt him close to permanently, but no one could lose ten rounds out of ten without collecting a few bruises and bumps. On the body as well as on the ego. She'd gotten a few bruises out of it as well, though not as many as he had.

It wasn't that he had a problem with losing to a woman. Nor had he gone into the sparring match with any expectation to win – she liked that about sparring with Grant. He was good enough to give her a real challenge in hand to hand combat but not good enough to actually have a chance at beating her unless she got complacent – not that she ever had in a fight with him. Unlike with say, Cap. She'd beaten him, but not as often as he'd beaten her in a hand to hand fight. All in all, it didn't bother her that much – she was good but Steve Rogers really did put the 'super' in 'supersoldier'. His gun-skill was practically nonexistent and he rarely even picked up a gun these days.

But Romanoff didn't offer Grant an icepack. He hated being offered more than the absolute necessary assistance when he'd been injured. Knowing what she did now, she understood where it came from – bred into him by Garrett. Being hurt was weakness and letting other people help you was even weaker. It wasn't an attitude she'd gotten out of that easily either. And she still didn't like taking help when she was hurt though she took it much better than she once had.

Grant would have to learn to take help in these situations, just as she did, but one thing at a time.

Grant was seated at the table not letting his back touch the chair's back, hands flat on the table. She'd been content after a few rounds – she hadn't been interested in seriously hurting him, or dashing his ego. Just making him go a few rounds as payback for what he'd said about her to Hill. But Grant had insisted. It hadn't taken her long to realize that he was trying to punish himself. She'd let him keep that up for a bit but stopped after the tenth time.

"If you're going to treat a sparring match like some sort of ceremonial self-flagellation, Grant, then we're not having one again." She told him, sitting across the table from him. "You aren't going to make up for anything by experiencing pain."

"I deserve it." Grant replied. "After what I-"

Romanoff stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Grant, are we going to go through this _every_ day?" She hadn't been as guilt-ridden initially, but she'd gotten there soon enough. She knew where it could go, the dark places the mind could go. Where it had gone, with her and with Grant. She wasn't going to let him go back to those places. She'd done what she could to take as many options for committing suicide away from him but Grant was a clever man. He could find another way if he slipped back into where he'd been before. She didn't think he would, but she didn't want to take any chance.

"Have you done things? Bad things? Things that you can never make up for? Yes. You have." Romanoff agreed. "There's no promise of forgiveness. There's no glorious return to your friends guaranteed. I can't and I won't promise you that this is going to be easy, I can't and won't promise you that you'll make it through to the other side. I can promise you that you _won't_ make it through if you don't start accepting that whatever you think about it, I am giving you a second chance. You don't deserve it. I didn't deserve the one I got. But I'm giving it to you." She didn't bother dressing up her tone. Clint hadn't been anything but blunt with her. It had worked then, and she was fairly confident it would work now.

She watched Grant. As had been common during their partnership, she couldn't read his expression. His brief stint of very readable expressions – by his standards, anyway – seemed to be over. Or maybe he was just on his game now. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Why? Why are you giving me this chance then? Just because we worked together? I worked with a lot of people. None of the rest of them came to offer me anything." Grant's tone wasn't hollow which was an improvement. Just flat.

"Because of what Garrett did to you. I don't know all the details, because you haven't shared with the class but I know enough. Five years under his care – I went through what he put you through. I was brainwashed and you were brainwashed." Romanoff stood up from her chair, walking away from the table a moment.

"I _wasn't_ brainwashed. I made my choices." Grant replied. "John may have manipulated me but I was the one who let him. I was in full control of my own choices." He looked up at her. "You said you spoke to people. People who knew about John coming to me in Juvenile Hall. Why did you talk to them? How did you know to talk to them?"

"You weren't in full control, but we'll get to that later. As for why I looked... I wanted to understand why the person I worked with for a year and a half turned Hydra. I was curious. You did save my life three times, after all. Even if the only time I really needed the help was in Buenos Aires." She spared a small smirk, hoping to restart an old argument.

Fortunately, Grant took the bait. "I'll accept that you really didn't need my help in Johannesburg. You should have told me your plan but I'll take that. But you had no weapon and a dozen highly trained mercenaries had their guns on you in Barcelona. You needed my help there too."

"I had their boss eating out of my hand. Five more minutes and we'd have secured the package without you needing to break out the sniper-rifle like you did." Romanoff replied. _Maybe even just two or three._

"Their boss was not fooled." Grant disagreed. "I was listening on the comms. He wasn't buying your story." She heard the door opening and the sound of footsteps approaching and Grant pulled up short, so he clearly heard it too. She wasn't worried. She recognized the footsteps. Besides, only one other person knew where this place was and had a key. Well, Coulson knew where it was now, she supposed.

Romanoff shook her head. "Don't worry. It's just Clint."

"Just Clint?" Her fellow Avenger walked in. "That's all I merit?"

"Would you rather I borrow from Stark and start calling you Legolas?" Romanoff asked, turning to greet him with a smile. "I wasn't expecting you to come by for a few more days." Clint had been with his family. She'd spoken to him before she'd gone to see Coulson the first time. Told him what she'd learned about Grant Ward – Clint had never really met him, but he was familiar with the man in passing and when she'd shared what she'd learned... he'd agreed to be part of a deal that would get Grant out of there and into a second chance.

"I wanted to come by and see him before I went to talk to Coulson. Give him a piece of my mind about not letting us know he was alive for so long. A few other people's minds too." Romanoff knew what he meant. Laura Barton had known, liked and respected Coulson – Phil, Maria and Fury were among the few people in S.H.I.E.L.D. apart from her who knew about Clint's family. Laura hadn't taken the news of his death well.

Grant didn't know about Clint's family and she wasn't going to tell him. That secret was Clint's to tell. She didn't expect he'd tell Grant any time soon, if ever.

"Sounds like a plan. I still need to really give him that piece of my mind myself." She'd given him a bit of it, but she'd had other priorities as well. "But I've got to stick around here for a bit." Grant was silent in the exchange.

Clint walked over to Grant. "Ward. We haven't really met, but I've heard good things about you... and well, not good things about you, in recent times." He waited for a moment, then held out a hand to him. Romanoff watched Grant look at the hand carefully for a moment and then he stood and took the hand, shaking it.

"Natasha had a lot of good things to say about you during our time working together." He said after a moment. His tone was not entirely flat anymore. He was meeting one of the legends of S.H.I.E.L.D. One of the Avengers – sure, Romanoff was one too, but he'd met her before that, and when he'd been assigned to work with her, he'd had a bit of that... ever so slight awe the first time they'd met as well. He was better at controlling it this time. He let go of Clint's hand. "As for what you've heard about..."

"I'm not here to judge you, Ward." Clint told him. "I agree with Nat. You didn't belong in that cell. And you're getting a second chance, which counts as a good thing in my book."

"I think he's going to insist on doing enough judging for the three of us." Romanoff pointed out. "So will you be staying over, or heading to 'The Playground' later today?"

"Probably later today. I assume you gave my usual room to him, after all." Clint pointed out. Romanoff nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched confusion form on Grant's face. _Oh don't tell me..._

"Your room? Wouldn't you..." He looked from her to Clint and back again. With a slight sigh, Romanoff took ten dollars out of her pocket and handed them to Clint. Now Grant looked even more confused. "What bet did I just lose you?" Okay, not completely confused.

"Clint bet me ten dollars you'd make the same mistake most of the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. makes and assume that he and I are in a relationship. I figured you'd be on one of the ones perceptive enough to _not_ make that mistake." She managed a wry smirk. "I guess not."


	7. Being Unmade

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters. I don't own what you recognize. I do 'own' the story.

Thanks to Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 7: Being Unmade

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 5th, 2014**

 _So wait. They're not together?_ Ward blinked, utterly surprised. He hadn't seen Barton and Natasha interacting that often, admittedly – he was on other assignments during their year and a half working together – but what little he'd seen hadn't countered the rumors that had run rampant around the agency about them. It really wasn't his business, so he hadn't paid much attention to those rumors, but he'd believed them, nonetheless. It seemed to fit with what he knew.

 _Well, turns out not so much_. It happened, Ward supposed.

"Well, sorry to cost you the ten bucks." He didn't need to ask them why neither of them had disabused the agency at large of the notion that they were together. At the end of the day, it wasn't anyone else's business.

"I for one, am not sorry," Barton replied, folding the ten dollars and slipping them into his pocket. He smirked, "Has she gotten you for the 'eye-candy' comment yet?"

Ward managed to keep from wincing just at the reminder of the beatdown she'd given him. It wasn't that he didn't probably deserve it, and it wasn't like he hadn't fought back – it was a sparring match, not him standing there and taking it – but still. Natasha outclassed him, especially in hand to hand. When he'd fought with May, it had been much more evenly matched – gun to his hand, pressed against the wall, Ward would admit that May was probably better than him in hand to hand, but it had been a close-run thing that could have gone either way.

By contrast... any fight between himself and Natasha... yeah, close-run was never the right word. He could make a good showing, but...

 _After what I've done, a little excessive pain is worth it._ Ward had kept going for more rounds, giving the best he could, but taking the hits he got, which he deserved. He wouldn't stand and let May hit him again – she'd gotten her hits in already. But the rest...

He'd take anything they saw fit to give him. And he'd stand there. After what he did to all of them – even Coulson – he deserved it. He should still be in that vault. But he was out now, and...

 _Maybe I really can take this chance._ He didn't deserve this chance, but as Natasha had said, he was getting it anyway...

"Yes." Ward said in answer to Barton's question. "Still a little sore from it." He forced his thoughts back to the now. The more he lingered on what he'd done, what he deserved... "Though she could have done worse." Ward watched Barton smirk a little, the archer looking over at Natasha.

"Don't make it sound like I just beat you up. We sparred." Natasha replied. She looked over to Barton, "I could demonstrate on you, if you want?"

To Ward's great lack of surprise, Barton held up a hand, shaking his head, "I've sparred enough with you to know I'm not interested in going for another round right now." Now that he knew, and could see them interacting, Ward could see that they weren't together. It wasn't obvious, but their interaction was of friends, not lovers. _Serves me right for believing rumors._ But the closeness was there. They were close – the two had been through fire and hell together. _And they've only grown closer because of it._

Ward had gone through fire and hell, but he'd done it alone. And he'd lost the team. He'd lost...

 _I lost Skye._

"I suppose you and I will probably see a lot of each other over the next while." Barton told him. "Actually, I wanted to have a word with you before I moved on to this 'Playground' of Coulson's." He nodded his head sideways towards the door to the outside. "Can I?"

Ward's first instinct was to say no. He didn't want to have a word with Barton. That word was probably going to be on the same subjects he didn't want to talk about with Natasha, and he knew her much better than he knew Barton. _She's going to keep at it until I tell her whatever she wants to know._

That might be true, he admitted to himself, but he trusted Natasha Romanoff in a way he didn't trust Clint Barton – he trusted that 'Hawkeye' was a good person, an honest person, but that wasn't the same thing as the way he trusted Natasha. Or the trust he'd earned from his team while under-cover. He'd earned a lot of trust from Skye, and squandered it-

Ward closed his eyes, forcing the thought down, desperate to avoid thinking about her right now, about what he did, and opened them again.

He didn't want to talk to the man, but... Ward looked over to Natasha, wondering what she thought of the idea. Her expression didn't help – she didn't physically shrug, but she didn't need to. She was leaving the choice up to him.

 _Of course she is._

But Ward was stuck here, and the only people he was likely to be able to interact with for a long while were Natasha and Barton. After so long in that Vault with only Coulson's rants for company, bar Skye's one visit, even he was starved for social interaction, just a little.

"Alright." Ward nodded. "Fine." He got up and followed Barton out of the house, joining him outside. Nestled as they were in the mountains, there wasn't much in the way of vegetation. Romanoff's quinjet was parked some distance away, as well a second one that Ward could only assume had been Barton's ride.

Leaning against the house, one the left side of the door, was a high-tech bow, and a quiver. Barton scooped them both up, slinging the quiver across his back. "You ever try the bow, Agent Ward?"

Ward shook his head. "No. And I'm not an agent anymore. Just Grant Ward." Even if there was a real agency to be an agent of, he couldn't count as an agent.

"It's not an easy weapon to master." Barton commented, handing Ward the bow, who accepted it carefully. Despite its size, it was surprisingly light, but the advanced materials that went into its construction made it very sturdy. "In England, there were laws restricting what members of a sort of 'archer class' could do, so they wouldn't risk damaging their arm muscles or developing them the wrong way, drawing the longbow was so hard. Took years."

"It takes years to really master the use of a gun." Ward pointed out. Which was true...

"True. But not to the same degree." Barton took the bow back from Ward. "Of course, bows are lot easier to use these days than when they were made from wood and sinew." He slung the weapon across his back, alongside the quiver. "I'm sure you've heard about what happened to me before the Battle of New York, when Loki first showed up."

"He mind-controlled you, Dr. Selvig and a few other agents with his magic staff." Ward answered. He'd heard the rumors, read what of the official reports a level six agent was allowed to read. John had filled in a few details, but not many. The staff wasn't _technically_ magic, so far as Ward understood Asgardian tech – which was limited to 'it works on science but seems like magic', but the difference was really not an important one. _The less contact I have with things Asgardian, the better._ First the staff, then Lorelei. He really doubted his third contact, if he had one, would be any better.

"He called it 'expanding our minds'." Barton explained. "I don't know what he meant by that really, but it felt like... like being unmade. Like he pulled me out of my head and stuffed something else inside. But I was there, seeing everything. Happened so quick, so powerful, not much chance to fight it. Don't know if I could have, even if I'd had the chance. Alien magic and all that."

Unmade... pulled out of your own head, something else stuffed inside... the words resonated with Ward, much as he didn't want them to. Sixteen years with his family, he'd been a broken, scared, stupid kid. He'd taken John's offer, been given almost no time to actually think on it... and then...

Then it was too late. Ward had committed himself. Built himself into what John wanted. _Did I build myself, or did John build me?_ John had built him back up – given him purpose, made him strong. Brought him back from the brink his family had taken him to.

 _He promised to build you up, make you matter, and he did. But he built you on his blueprint._

"You know what it's like to not be in control of yourself? An observer in your own body?" Barton continued. "Thing is, it doesn't really feel like you're just an observer. You feel like you're the one doing it. You're the one making the choices. It's only afterwards that you really realize what happened. I still remember attacking the Helicarrier. Consciously choosing to do it." Ward knew where this was going. It was obvious what this was about – it was about convincing him that he'd been brainwashed by John.

But he hadn't. He'd made his choices. And afterwards, he still felt like he'd made his choices. They were bad choices – to understate things. Choices that he wished with every fiber of his being that he could take back, but they were choices he'd made nonetheless.

 _But it was John's blueprint that I was built back up to._ He'd done everything John had asked, apart from killing Buddy, right to the end. He'd done his best to purge himself of weakness, and it had worked, until the team. Until Skye and FitzSimmons...

It was John's blueprint he'd followed, and he'd done it all for John, according to John's will.

 _Blueprints are drawn according to the makers design. And then built on that plan. It's a measure of control right?_

Maybe, but Ward wasn't a building. He was a person. He had free will. He'd made his own choices – it would be so easy to just say that he had been brainwashed. Hydra had its methods and tactics for control. The Faustus Method, for one, but there were also other ways to make people 'comply'. None of those had been used on him. He'd been built back up the way John wanted, yes, but still, he could have chosen differently. A few times, he'd even managed to – he hadn't killed Buddy, even though it hadn't saved the dog that had been his only companion for years in the end. He didn't shoot FitzSimmons... for all that it had helped them.

 _They're alive._ That had helped them. Natasha was right, of course. Whatever he'd intended, they had still suffered because of what he'd done. Forgiveness was not obligatory.

"I'm guessing all this sounds a little familiar?" Barton finished, looking at Ward directly, eye to eye.

Ward couldn't meet the archer's gaze and looked away. "Familiar, yes, but not the same. You were under Loki's control. You didn't have any real will of your own. But I..." Ward shook his head. "I did."

"You did. It wasn't the same thing. What Loki did in a matter of moments happened over the course of those missing five years Nat found." Barton agreed. "I don't know any more than what Nat's told me, and I'm sure you've avoided telling her as much as possible." _Very true_. "But five years is enough time to unmake someone, to pull them out and put something else inside. You may have felt like you were in control, and maybe you had more control than I did, but you didn't have as much choice as you think you did. Would you have chosen to turn on your team, if it hadn't been for the fact that Garrett needed you to?"

"Of course not." Ward replied immediately, instinctively. What reason would he have had to turn on the team, the people who had become his friends and colleagues and in the case of Skye, maybe more. "But that's not what happened. And I still could have chosen not to free Garrett. _Should_ have chosen not to free him."

Barton shook his head. "Don't think it's that simple, Ward. Like I said, I don't know what happened with you, but I know what Nat went through. She's says the same things sometimes." Barton started to clap Ward on the shoulder then his hand fell short and instead he held it out for a shake. Gratefully, Ward took the hand and shook it.

"I'll be back, I'm sure. Keep yourself out of trouble – Nat's put a lot of trust into you. She's rarely wrong. Make sure this isn't one of the times that she is." The archer finished, giving Ward a firm, solid look in the eyes that the former agent still couldn't meet for long.

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 5th, 2014**

Romanoff watched Grant walk back into the house and walk past the kitchen.

"Grant." She gestured to the papers he'd been writing on. "Are you done writing down everything you have on Hydra?" This was a rather important detail. They didn't have to do it right this second, but she wanted it done and out of the way so they could worry about it later. She suspected that if she didn't send some information to Coulson in the next few days, he'd pester her about the intel. And not without reason – the agency was fighting for it's life against Hydra, and needed every edge it could get.

"No." Grant replied flatly.

"Are you going to get back to it right now?" She didn't want to press him yet, so she wasn't. She would have to sooner or later, but... Barton hadn't pressed her this early either. You had to approach gently. He'd only just gotten out of that cell, only just recovered from three suicide attempts. He needed some time control his own actions.

"Not today." Grant replied. He walked out of the kitchen and into his bedroom, the door closing firmly behind him – though he didn't slam it. Romanoff went over to the coffee maker and poured herself the last of the coffee, taking a sip from it. "Are you going to be in there the rest of the day, or what?" She had a key to his bedroom door, for the time being. In time, she hoped to be able to give him that without any concern, but until she was sure...

There was no response for over a minute, but finally, Grant spoke: "I just need some time Natasha." His tone was prickly, and Romanoff guessed he was speaking through gritted teeth. _What did Clint have to say to him?_ In some ways, the prickly defensiveness in his tone was the most lively Romanoff had heard Grant's voice yet. It certainly sounded most like the Grant Ward she knew, anyway.

Romanoff was experienced enough, and aware enough, to be able to guess just what was Grant, and what was part of the cover. Grant was _not_ a naturally personable person – sixteen years with his family and five years in the woods with only a bastard like Garrett for company would do that to a person – but some of his loner reputation at the Academy and in the Agency as a whole had been keeping people away from him as part of his cover. But only a part of it. Because the best deep cover was not the antisocial loner. When things went wrong, antisocial loners with no friends were always the first suspects. Romanoff had been trained by the Red Room extensively in how to make friends and influence people when under cover. You wanted friends. It was the best way to get information, to form the connections you needed, and to get people who would cover you when suspicion fell on you for some reason.

Grant was naturally unfriendly, naturally prickly. So in some ways, this prickliness was a good sign. It was him being himself, being his own native personality.

 _That's another thing we'll have to work on._ On being Grant Ward, Human Being. Not Grant Ward, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., or Grant Ward, Sleeper Hydra Operative or Grant Ward, Product of John Garrett's Brainwashing.

It had taken her nearly a year to be at a decent mentally stable place after Clint had made his different call, but she was hoping that Grant would be done faster. If it took a year though... well, it took a year.

And, for that matter, Grant was actually saying _no_ outright. Fifteen years of always yes to Garrett – no was important.

"Alright. Take your time. I'll microwave you something for dinner if you're not out by then, leave it by your door." Not waiting for a response, Romanoff set her half-empty coffee mug on the counter and snagged two of the pistols hanging on the wall by the door - She had more secreted throughout the house – and made her way outside. She could use the time productively to practice her shooting. She didn't _need_ to practice, perhaps, in a technical sense, but she did anyway. Some habits were hard to break, and Romanoff refused to let her skills get rusty in any case.

 **Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse**

 **October 7th, 2014**

Grant spent the next day writing down every little thing he knew about Hydra, even things he told her were obsolete or almost certainly so. There were some interesting tidbits in there. Romanoff kept one of the pages back, already formulating ideas on how to use that particular piece of intelligence herself. Once Grant was better, actually, he could use it. As far as the wider-world knew, Grant Ward was still enjoying the hospitality of S.H.I.E.L.D. imprisonment. That was something that could eventually be useful. But only once Grant was better – she wasn't putting him anywhere near the field until a whole lot of things had happened.

The rest of the intel she would be taking to Coulson in the next few days. But apart from a few words in the morning and as he was making dinner – noncommital words about the weather and food, of all things – Grant said almost nothing.

Romanoff was in the kitchen the next morning after the silent day, drinking coffee, when Grant walked in. She handed him his cup, as was apparently becoming normal.

"Am I getting the silent treatment again today, Grant?"

"No." Grant replied. He sat down at the table, holding his coffee mug in one hand, but not drinking it. "You wanted to know about what happened in the woods."

"I do." More importantly, Grant needed to talk about it. Needed to tell _someone_ about it. Romanoff walked towards the table, pulling out the chair opposite Grant, but she didn't sit down just yet.

"You're going to keep asking about it until I tell you one way or the other?" Grant sounded defeated already, as if she'd been asking him every hour on the hour for days.

Romanoff sat down. "Sooner or later, yes. But hardly now. If you don't want to right now, I'm not forcing the issue." She set her mug down, leaning across the table towards him a little.

"Well, I want to tell you now." Grant replied, though the strained note in his voice suggested that 'want' was very much _not_ the right word. "If I don't now..."

"By all means: But... why now?" Romanoff wondered if it was related to whatever Clint had said to him.

"Barton...he told me about what Loki did to him. What happened to him before the Battle of New York. It...it made me think." Grant replied, his words barely above a murmur – Romanoff had to strain to hear them.

 _Didn't expect him to do that so soon._ She'd hoped Clint would talk to him about it, sooner or later. Just as she'd talked about it with Clint, helping him the way he'd helped her, Romanoff had hoped that the two of them could help Grant through their own experiences with brainwashing. But she had figured Clint would wait a while first. He hadn't talked about what he went through under the influence of the staff with even the other Avengers. Just her.

"And that's made you understand what I already told you? That Garrett brainwashed you?" Romanoff couldn't believe it was _that_ simple.

"No." Grant replied firmly. "I made the choices I made of my own free will. But... what Barton had to say made me think about how John might have..." Grant paused for a moment, "framed my choices..."

 _Well, it's a start._ It wasn't the truth, but it was close. In a lot of ways, that was what brainwashing did.

"We'll talk on that later." Romanoff said, not bothering to correct him on the fact that he really _was_ brainwashed. "Right now – the woods."

"The woods." Grant nodded. "John took me up the middle of Wyoming. Thousand acres. No civilization for miles. Said he was taking me to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. So that's what I prepared for... as it turns out... yea, not so much. Left me with his dog – Buddy - and the clothes on my back." Romanoff listened as Grant explained how Garrett told him he'd need to earn everything himself. About 'weakness'.

"It was... hard. Those early weeks... if there'd been anywhere to go, I might have tried to leave. I might have run to civilization, police or not." Grant admitted. "But there wasn't anywhere to go. And I refused to let the one person who had ever believed in me down. Let him think I was weak. So...I stayed. I tried to survive. Didn't take me long to realize that living off the land was a... limited approach to it all."

Grant was talking in a toneless, matter of fact way, as if he was at a particularly boring mission debriefing, relaying information as if it had happened to someone else. But it hadn't happened to someone else. It had happened to him, and he really should have more invested into this, emotionally.

 _He does. It's not like you usually think about the Red Room with your feelings turned on_. Any specialist learned to be able to shut down and lock away their emotions. For people like herself and Grant, they'd learned that well before attending the Ops Academy. It was an early lesson in the Red Room for her and Grant's childhood... combined with the woods, with what Garrett did had given him the same skills. It was a survival mechanism, and he was using it here.

Healthy or not, it was the way he was going to do things right now. Which, unfortunately, she understood.

Romanoff didn't say anything, but gestured for him to continue, as he told her more – about how he stole from cabins, and the very... direct way that Garrett had taught him how to dodge bullets. And the slipshod way he'd patched Grant up if he was hit, deliberately doing badly to 'toughen' him up.

"If I hadn't been so obsessed with making sure he kept believing in me, that should have been a clue. But I had a lot of time in that cell. Realizing just how little I really mattered to him... that's when I tried to kill myself the first time..." Grant said softly.


End file.
